SOURCE: A review of When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks, in Best Seller, Vol. 33, No. 19, January 1, 1974, p. 434–35.

In the following review, Ryan praises Clarke's skillful use of memory as a source of inspiration for the characters in When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks.

That the black man from Barbados (and the West Indies in general) encounters unique problems when he enters Canadian and American cultures is made clear in [When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks] this collection of eleven stories. He remembers the beauty of Barbados, its white sand, warm sun, family life, leisurely pace, and simultaneously admits, often implicitly, to the reasons for leaving this Eden: quite often the search for economic security, sometimes the conviction that he is an Englishman, occasionally the search for an education free from...