#BookReview: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie - Ayana Mathis

Is there a limit on the amount of love a parent can have for their child?  If you have more than one child, is it possible to have loved your other children so much that you have nothing left for the others?  Or is it just possible for life to beat you down so much so that you have nothing left to give your children except a place to stay, food to eat and a determination to survive?

I can't find fault with Hattie Shepherd.  Giving birth to your first children at the age of 19 in a new city can be overwhelming.  To find yourself giving birth years later at the age of 46 is surprising.  Then to turn around at 74 and find yourself mothering your grandchildren, is not an easy road.  But how do you explain that to your children who only see you as cold and uncaring?

"Somebody always wants something from me," she said in a near whisper.  "They're eating me alive."

As you read, you'll be caught up in the lives of Lloyd, the musician; Six, the wonder boy preacher; the high strung and insecure Alice, who pretends her brother Billups needs her when, in reality, she's the one that desperately needs him; Bell, who seeks revenge against Hattie when all she really wants is to know the secret joy her mother found once upon a time; and countless others.  Mathis dedicates chapters to the various offspring, but their interactions as children aren't explored as much as they are as adults.  She wants you to see who they've become as a result of living in the house.

I love the set up of the book.  It feels like a compilation of short stories that are loosely tied together, with the only common thread being that Hattie and August have given birth to them.  With the exception of Alice and Billups, we see very little interaction among the siblings once they leave home.  It's as if Hattie's lack of love spread to them and there's nothing that bonds any of them together.

Part of the great migration to the north, I wonder how much of Hattie's coldness is a reflection of her surroundings.  While her husband, August, longs for the Georgia he remembers, minus Jim Crow, Hattie refuses to even speak its name.  Still, you have to wonder if August lamenting over leaving the south is valid.  Would Hattie have been different, would the children have had different lives, had they been surrounded by paper shell pecans, sweet gum trees, gigantic peaches and neighbors whose names they could recite years later? 

256pp
Published: December 2012
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

 

Theme: A Song for Mama by Boyz II Men

#BookReview: Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin

Would it take your mother's disappearance for you to realize how little you knew of her?

"Do you remember asking me a while ago to tell you something that only I knew about Mom? I told you I didn't know Mom.  All I knew was that Mom was missing.  It's the same now.  I especially don't know where her strength came from."

It's not until your wife goes missing that you even see her as your counterpart.

"Before you lost sight of your wife on the Seoul Station subway platform, she was merely your children's mother to you."

"Before she went missing, you spent your days without thinking about her.  When you did think about her, it was to ask her to do something, or to blame her or ignore her.  Habit can be a frightening thing.  You spoke politely with others, but your words turned sullen toward your wife.  Sometimes you even cursed at her.  You acted as if it had been decreed that you couldn't speak politely to your wife. That's what you did."

When 69 year old Park So-nyo goes missing, her husband and her children come to understand how little they knew of her and how much they took her for granted for so long.  Born into poverty, she married a man that she didn't know, or initially love, yet raised five children to become productive members of society.  Yet, like many adult children, she became an afterthought as they became successful, seen as an annoyance by some.

Still, their successes were all built firmly on the foundation that she set for them.  The eldest son for whom she saved and sacrificed to send to school; a younger daughter that was sent off to live with that same son to receive an even better education; the daughter who tries to manage being both a pharmacist and a mother to three, while wondering how Mom managed to raise five children and make it seem so easy and natural.

"Since she went missing, I often think: Was I a good daughter? Could I do the kind of things for my kids she did for me?  I know one thing.  I can't do it like she did.  Even if I wanted to.  When I'm feeding my kids, I often feel annoyed, burdened, as if they're holding on to my ankles.  I love my kids, and I am moved - wondering, did I really give birth to them?  But I can't give them my entire life like Mom did.  Depending on the situation, I act as if I would give them my eyes if they need them, but I'm not Mom."

Over the course of this short read, each member of the family reflects on the role Mom played in his/her life, realizing that not once did they see as anything other than their mother.  And as mothers sometimes do, she downplayed any problems she had the few times that anyone asked.  Ultimately, it's the inability to express her pain (and her family's willingness to overlook it) that leads to the disappearance of Park.

"So why did we think of Mom as a mom from the very beginning?  She didn't have the opportunity to pursue her dreams and, all by herself, faced everything the era dealt her, poverty and sadness, and she couldn't do anything about her very bad lot in life other than suffer through it and get beyond it and live her life to the very best of her ability, giving her body and her heart to it completely.

256pp
Published: April 2011

Theme: Acknowledgement by John Coltrane

#BookReview: The Floater - Sheryl Sorrentino

At the age of 46, Norma Reyes graduated with her law degree, fully expecting to be offered a spot as a first year associate at Robertson, Levine & Shemke (RLS), the firm where she'd clerked the previous summer and received such high praise.  Twenty years of working her way up to supervisor of phone operators while going to school at night have finally paid off.  And even though her ailing mother ridicules her dreams, Norma is determined to make it.

The partners at RLS have never taken Norma seriously.  Yes, she did good work in her summer position, but they would never hire an associate from a less than prestigious law school.  Norma didn't look like them and certainly wouldn't fit in with their client base, given her ethnic background. Luckily, the recession gives them an excuse when they deny her employment as an attorney. While they won't hire her as an attorney, they will hire her as a floater.  Grudgingly, Norma accepts the job, believing that it will only be temporary and that once she passes the bar, she'll be offered the position she deserves.  Poor, gullible Norma.

Weeks of being belittled by everyone from senior partners to first year associates (a group she should have been a part of) start to wear on Norma.  A chance encounter with Oscar Peterson, the mail room supervisor, makes Norma's life a little more bearable.  But their happily ever after is disrupted when Oscar gets wind of a memo about Norma, drafted by one of the senior partners.  Norma will have the fight of her life on her hand if she can get her courage up enough to do something about it.

I was torn between liking, pitying and hating Norma.  It was obvious from the beginning that dealing with her family and men had bruised her self-esteem, but she had to have guts to go back to law school at night at her age.  So while I loved that she was courageous enough to do that, I was mad that she let the attorneys mistreat and lie to her repeatedly while she accepted it.

I also vacillated between liking and disliking Oscar.  He seemed to have Norma's interests at heart, but he was so overly aggressive and insensitive at times that I kept waiting for him to break her heart like her previous boyfriends.  Even by the end of the book, I wasn't sure that she should be with him and wanted to yell out like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, "You in danger, girl!"  Perhaps the author didn't develop Oscar enough to make him likable or maybe it was her intent to make the reader distrust him.  Either way, I can't say that I was happy to see Norma with him.

Another thing that bothered me was how long Norma stayed with the firm, because surely working there as a floater was not the first time she witnessed the assholeness of the place.  As a clerk during the summer, she had to see the way partners treated the support staff.  Or perhaps it was okay with her then because she saw herself as one of them (attorney) instead of one of them (support staff).  Which lends itself to the question, is the mistreatment of others excusable based on their rank in the company hierarchy?  Apparently it was at RLS.

344pp
Published: August 2012
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

Theme: Do Something by Macy Grey

#BookReview: Destiny's Divas - Victoria Christopher Murray

90s R & B superstar Raine Omari had the career most people dreamed of, but she walked away from that life to fully embrace her love of the Lord.  More than that, she wanted the freedom to express her Christianity through her music and use her life's testimony as a witness to others.  And she decided to bring along a few more singers to help her out. 

Twenty something Sierra Dixon is certifiably nuts.  Actually, calling her nuts is an understatement.  Damaged goods, she was raised in a home with an alcoholic mother who dictated to her a list of things to do, and not to do, to trap and keep a man.  Sierra has more issues than the New York Times, but she doesn't see it that way.  She's just doing what she has to do to get ahead, even if that means lying about being celibate to retain her membership in the country's hottest new group, Destiny's Divas.

First lady Liza Washington has been hiding a secret for twenty-eight years.  From the outside, she appears to have the perfect marriage to her mega church pastor-husband.  As the forty something member of the group, her life is supposed to be a testimony to longevity and endurance in marriage.  In actuality, her husband has been shadier than an oak tree of late and Liza fears that it's just a matter of time before his actions bring the world crashing down around her.

The group organizer, Raine Omari, has it all.  She's in love with her husband and would do anything for her daughter.  But how can she testify about unconditional love when she can't stand her mother-in-law?  Truth be told, her mother-in-law, Beerlulu, could drive anyone ever the edge, but her meddling ways threaten to harm Raine's daughter and drive a wedge between Raine and her husband.

I found that though I felt sorry for Raine and Liza, I didn't have much sympathy for Sierra.  While the other women seemed changed by their situations, Sierra's damaged thoughts were too deep to have simply been changed without benefit of therapy or medication.  You don't go off the deep end one day and hop back up a month later like everything is everything.  Perhaps she talked it out with someone, but the author didn't mention it, so I have to assume that she was as nutty at the end as she was in the beginning. 

Even though Destiny's Divas is 400 pages, it's a quick read as you try to find out how each woman will deal with her situation.  I was amused by the author's reference to current places and people.  She referenced Hue-Man bookstore, an actual bookstore in Harlem that's scheduled to close soon, and a comment she heard Melissa Harris-Perry, host of the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, make.  If you're a fan of Victoria Christopher Murray's previous works, this does not disappoint.

400pp
Published: June 201
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher; opinions are my own.

 

Theme: God's Grace by Trin-i-tee 5-7

#BookReview: Imperfect Bliss - Susan Fales-Hill

In what's a clear departure from 2010's One Flight Up, Imperfect Bliss falls short of what I expected from someone that once wrote for The Cosby Show, A Different World and Linc's.  Today's television networks rely heavily on reality TV and that's the world that Fales-Hill plunges us into with her latest.

The overly dramatic Forsythia and mild mannered Harold have successfully raised four daughters.  Well, successfully may be a bit of a stretch.  Oldest daughter Victoria is just this side of becoming an old maid.  Second eldest daughter Bliss, a recent divorcee, has returned home with her four year old daughter, Bella, in tow.  Third daughter Charlotte desperately seeks attention in all of the wrong places.  And youngest daughter Diana is about to turn everyone's world upside down.

Diana undoubtedly grew up watching reality TV shows like The Bachelor, so it shouldn't have come as a shock to anyone in the family when she announces that she's been picked to star in her own reality show called The Virgin.  Always ready to claim the spotlight that is rightfully hers, Forsythia is on board from day one, but the rest of the family, especially Bliss, isn't so sure they want their everyday lives broadcast across the country for eight months.  It doesn't matter.  Eventually all of the Harcourts are swept up in the madness of The Virgin, whether they want to be or not.

There are a lot of story lines going on throughout the book and, honestly, it was hard to muster up a care about any of them.  I found Forsythia to be highly annoying with her obsession with skin color and her perceived idea of perfection.  Watching her reject her grandchild and anyone else didn't meet her standards of perfection was painful.  Charlotte as the promiscuous bad girl seeking her family's attention seemed very stereotypical.  Interestingly, the daughter upon whom the reality show is based, almost gets the smallest story line.  It's interesting that Fales-Hill would choose to build the book around Bliss, given that Diana's appearing on The Virgin is the basis for so much of the family drama and interaction.

Imperfect Bliss really could have been a much more enjoyable story  had it taken away several of the distractions in the forms of Forsythia and The Virgin and spent more time focusing on Bliss' relationship with her father, daughter and the men in her life.  I would have also loved to see more attention paid to Victoria.  In my opinion, her story line was the most interesting of all.

304pp
Published: July 2012
Disclosure: Copy received from publisher, opinions are my own.

 

Theme: We Are Family by Sister Sledge

#BookReview: Four of A Kind - Valerie Frankel

Typically when I read a jacket cover and find that one of the characters in a book about mostly white characters is black, I prepare myself to cringe.  Far too often authors that are not of color get characters of color wrong.  In the wrong hands, black female characters are sassy or they’re cold and distant.  My favorite is when they’re “of regal stature.”  It’s like authors don’t know any black women in real life, so they create characters based on what they’ve seen on TV (and that’s another conversation for another time) or what they imagine the barista at Starbucks is like when she’s not making their venti grande blah blah blah.  And then there’s Valerie Frankel.

This is my first Frankel novel, so I’m not sure how her other work reads, but I could kiss her for Four of A Kind. Why? A story of four women that become friends because their kids attend school together, and they serve on a committee together, is likely. Even more likely is that each of those women brings something to the table, holds back some things and doesn’t easily let her guard down. These are not cookie cutter characters. Each is unique. Now let’s talk about why I personally loved the character of Dr. Carla Morgan.

As I stated previously, so many authors don't know anyone of color personally (and by personally I mean someone they actually talk to/socialize with outside of work), so they make the character of color one-dimensional.  She's angry or she's bitter or she's "exotic."  What does that even mean?  I don't know, but I can't count how many times exotic pops up in books to describe these women.  But Frankel's Carla is like any other mother, she just happens to be black.  She's a married doctor with a passive aggressive husband and two kids.  She wonders how she fits in with this group of women with which she has nothing in common, but so do the other characters.  Her blackness isn't on display.  It's a part of her, but it doesn't define her. 

The same can be said of characters Robin, a Jewish single mother; Alicia, an unhappily married mother; and Bess, the blond WASP that seems to have it all.  I found all of the characters and their interactions with each other, their spouses and their children to be believable.  The story lines were fully fleshed out and I felt like I really knew these women by the time I finished the book.  This was my first read of Frankel's work, but I'll definitely be checking out her other writing.

352pp
Published: February 2012
Disclosure: Copy received from publisher. Opinions are my own.

Theme: Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves by Aretha Franklin & Annie Lennox