SOURCE: A review of Coming Down from Wa, in Quill & Quire, Vol. 61, No. 9, September 1995, p. 68.

In the following review, Horton concludes that while Coming Down from Wa lacks drama, Thomas's evocative imagery makes the novel compelling.

Audrey Thomas's Coming Down from Wa begins with its protagonist's recollection of a childhood gift: when William Kwame MacKenzie turned six he received a box of 64 crayons from his paternal grandparents in Montreal. Marvelling at the colours suddenly available to him, he made his first forays into art, only to be stifled by a Sunday school teacher who insisted that trees must be green and little boys must colour inside the lines.

MacKenzie recalls his box of colours and the abortion of his early art career as he makes his faltering way through the intense heat and equally intense hues of Africa's Gold Coast, ostensibly researching a master's degree thesis on lost-wax...