“If I Survive You” Reinvents the Experience of Being an Insider and Outsider by Its Unique Point of View: Embracing Immigration, Identity and Self as a Jamaican-American Growing Up in Florida

I met Jonathan Escoffrey on the sixth floor of Alkek Library before his reading.

As we sat ensconced in the Wittliff’s Southwestern Writers’ collection, I had the pleasure and honor of hearing about Escoffrey’s voyage developing his voice as a writer—from working as a manager in a low-income housing facility to embracing his gifts for crafting stories. Conversations like the one I had with Escoffery lend both courage and inspiration for writers in a creative world where the trajectory to success in the field is often self-determined.

Farid: Tell me about If I Survive You.

Escoffrey: It’s about human relationships. With my mother, father, and brother. My relationship with them, and their relationship with life. Eight short stories of my family’s immigration journey from Jamaica to the US, adulthood, relationships. It is not strictly autobiographical in nature, but it is strongly influenced by real-world events, characters and experiences.

Farid: Writing being such a powerful tool to shape narratives and claim one’s own experiences. In a way that is both so private in nature and yet so universal. Tell me about how it was being a second-gen immigrant to the US, and then a writer of color.

Escoffrey: Growing up in Florida, the experience of “othering” was intense. I was “too” Black for Hispanic kids, not Jamaican “enough” for the Jamaicans, and I struggled to fit in with race and national identity as it was understood by others around me. My mother’s Jamaican accent undertones were super profound. Hence, kids often asked me which language she speaks and made fun of me for this too. As an [advocate] for equality in storytelling, I went on to found a writers of color group in Boston for underrepresented voices to collab and be absolutely heard in ways that have not always one hundred percent been covered by traditional publication channels.

Farid: Tell me about navigating feeling almost Jamaican, being the only member of your family to be born in the US, and almost American, as per the sense of belonging and identity defined by the peers around you.

Escoffrey: My parents, Sanya and Topper, had a huge family there. In Jamaica. Cousins, aunts, uncles. Relatively affluent. Then came the move and then the readjustment period. Fitting in required a lot of transitions for each member of my family. This is a cross-continental story of coming into myself and how relationships evolved along the way.

Farid: With your mom, dad, and brother. So, the four of you?

Escoffrey: Yes, their relationship with each other and themselves. Like, I have an older brother, Delano. One chapter of If I Survive You relates my experience working with my brother on his landscaping business right before a massive storm hit. Delano’s bucket truck was being held hostage for non-payment of repairs by the mechanic and we had an opportunity to chip in to make it possible for the neighborhood association to prevent tree limbs from falling on cars and homes. Rescuing our truck from a mechanic who placed a lien on it until we paid for repairs, but using the truck was our only method to pay for the repair. That’s in there.

Farid: Then you speak about working at a senior-living housing facility after a journey to find meaningful employment. You’ve done numerous jobs to get to the point where you can do what you love for a living.

Escoffrey: Absolutely. As you said, the book has been super well received, which has been great, as these stories are super close to my heart and true to my lived experience.

Farid: What makes it so deeply personal yet universal is how it speaks to a human’s internal experience overcoming lingering self-doubt from a world that rarely rejoices in our “enoughness” outside of traditional success metrics. Because so many of us are conditioned by systems we live in, we struggle to experience ourselves as pretty, smart, rich, talented, “enough” and embrace our authentic selves. It is really empowering to see a human step into their true self and prosper in that essence. Like there’s even a story in there about going to a person’s house for a paid task and ending up getting assaulted.

Escoffrey: That’s right. It’s been a wild ride with lots of low points and victories along the way.

Farid: What does If I Survive You convey to the world for you?

Escoffrey: To convey human fallibility against the backdrop of a system where we work to survive and strive to actualize to become the best version of ourselves. And how even learning to live with ourselves is a developing relationship. To treat ourselves with grace and patience, not shame and constant comparison with where we are falling short. To step fully into our gifts is another piece of this puzzle and to see them being well received is a privilege in and of itself.

Farid: And grappling with critical issues such as migration, death, financial woes, with clarity and humor makes your writing so relatable and honest.

Escoffrey: Thank you.

Farid: Talk to me for a while on perspective as an element of craft in your storytelling process.

Escoffrey: So, the chapters in it are told in different voices. How that central character in the story would think, feel, speak. To step into that person’s shoes and relate the world as they experience it.

Farid: You experiment with different points of view in a way that is very interesting. It brings such a rich tone and diverse range to the way these stories are told. Not only to alter perspective but to alter speech, language, accent, thought process, and to get this across on the page. It gives an insider and outsider view. For example, If I Survive You shows how each member of your family experienced your father as a parent. And then a remarkable job of showing your dad’s interiority, which is using his inner world experience, to make us understand more about who the character is and where they are coming from. The reader can really experience the world viscerally through this lens. To inhabit a certain gender, ethnicity, holding a place in geography and time. Bringing in much of his journey through adolescence, marriage, and fatherhood. Excellent literature enables the reader to experience reality with the life lessons, beliefs, sensations, and relate by inhabiting the world through another human’s field of perception. If I Survive You does this excellently in ways few books do, and it’s a rare quality. Tell me how you went about the process of finding an agent or publisher.

Escoffrey: Honestly, it was a matter of finding those who resonated with my work and a lot of trial and error to get published.

Farid: I can only imagine.

Escoffrey: As a kid, I found solace in the world of literature, characters, stories, books. That translated into becoming a fiction writer as an adult. Happy to be here.