The stories that comprise Four Taxis Facing North reveal the contrasts of contemporary Trinidad. Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw explores the lives of rich and poor Trinidadian families in anguish: a world of abandonment, unmet expectations and untenable secrets. In these landscapes, it is the women who suffer most, theirs an especially lonely position from which they look for escape. Like any other nation, Trinidad faces the threats of violence, drug abuse and corruption. But these issues become magnified in a small island setting. Named for the the title story, which envisions the island’s problems exploding into anarchy, this collection offers a finely nuanced view of Trinidadian society where the legacy of colonialism echoes alongside the tensions of a nation at a crucial point in its history.