In Kempadoo's debut novel, we are immediately and vividly thrown into the mind and world of Lula, Kempadoo's prepubescent narrator. Rich in sensory detail, the novel carries its reader along in a flow of snappy vignettes about ten-year-old Lula's awakening sexuality, the people of Tamarind Grove, her racially mixed family and their conflict with the PNC regime of Burnham's Guyana. Kempadoo's depiction of the ten-year-old psyche, in Guyana or anywhere is shockingly accurate. Buxton Spice , like the mind of a ten-year-old girl, is preoccupied with sex. Sex and the three prostitutes in town, the burgeoning sexual prowess of the slightly older neighboring boys, and a graphically described scene of sex play among Lula and her sister and a set of neighboring sisters. Lula's world is a confusing place; her body and role are changing, as is the political landscape of Guyana. She looks to the Buxton Spice mango tree that towers over her house like an omniscient God. She is full of questions about the violent world around her. The big tree, she believes, knows but won't tell her its secrets. The great strength of Buxton Spice is in Kempadoo's ability to palpably show the reader an unfamiliar place and people, embroiled in the familiar struggles of life.