#BookReview: Powder Necklace - Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Sending your daughter away from London, the only home she's ever known, to your native country of Ghana, may seem extreme to some.  But that's just what Lila's mother does when she suspects her 14 year old daughter is becoming too wild and loose.  Telling her that they're going to visit her Auntie Flora, Lila's mother instead takes her to the airport and puts her on a flight to Kumasi.

Just as she's adjusted to life with Auntie Irene, for what she believes is a short visit, Lila learns that her mother intends for her to stay in Ghana for the duration of the school year.  At the Dadaba Girls' Secondary School, Lila is forced to endure water shortages, harassment because of her British accent, and finally learns the real reason her mother sent her away.  She needed time for herself.  WHAT? I almost threw this book across the room when I read that.  Lila's father lived in United States. He was perfectly willing to have Lila come live with him, but her mother sent her to Ghana because she needed time to herself AND to spite him? Ugh.

Eventually Lila's  mother brings her back to England.  In the six months that Lila has been gone, her mother has managed to get engaged to a man with a daughter Lila's age and they all live together.  Ma'am, you couldn't deal with your own child, who by all accounts was a good kid, but you're parenting someone else's child while yours is living in less than favorable conditions for months?

When her mother again decides she can't deal with Lila, she tells her she's going to visit her father for the summer in New York.  Look, I don't know why this woman wasn't just upfront with her daughter each time she shipped her off.  And I don't know why Lila kept falling for the okey doke, because by this time I already knew her mother was sending her there permanently.

Lila is much more optimistic than I am though.  Even after getting shuttled from house to house, continent to continent, she was able to find the good in the situation.  I would have been really interested in reading this story from the mother's point of view.  Without hearing her side of the story, she just comes across as extremely self-centered and uncaring.  That made it difficult to enjoy the book.  While Brew-Hammond has been compared to Edwidge Danticat and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I have to say she's not even close to being in their league.

280pp
Published: April 2010

Theme: Unconditional Love by Donna Summer & Musical Youth

#BookReview: Nowhere is a Place - Bernice McFadden

Sherry has drifted from place to place for most of her adult life in search of something.  Though we're told initially that Sherry has spent her life wondering why her mother, Dumpling, slapped her one day, we know that there has to be a deeper reason for Sherry's restlessness.  As she and Dumpling set off on a journey from Nevada to their family reunion in Georgia, you have to believe that she'll find answers along the way.

More than just the story of one woman's wanderlust, Nowhere Is A Place is a family history, the story of how their family homestead came to be.  Told through the words of Sherry, as she imagined it from research and conversations with Dumpling, it's a journey back to slavery and to present day Georgia.  Beginning with the story of Lou, an Indian girl sold into slavery, right up to fast-tail Lilly, Dumpling's mother, who couldn't take another minute in that small town and sought the bright lights of Philadelphia, Bernice McFadden's words pull you in quickly.

One aspect of the book that I really loved was that as Dumpling was reading Sherry's words, and observing her during their long drive from Nevada to Georgia, she began to gain a better understanding of who her daughter was.  Often parents only know their children as the person they remember growing up in their house, not as an adult.  Dumpling has no idea why Sherry is the way she is or why she does the things she does until she spends time with her and gets to know the adult Sherry.  Prior to their road trip, she always thought of Sherry as her strange child or the child that didn't tell her anything about herself.  I feel like by the end of their journey, Dumpling found her to be extraordinary and learned that while Sherry had been telling her about herself all along, Dumpling hadn't necessarily been listening.

As I go back and listen to McFadden books that I've previously read, I'm reminded of works by J. California Cooper.  This book, especially, made me think of Cooper's The Wake of the Wind.  And though I enjoyed this book when I read it, the narration of  Myra Lucretia Taylor really brought it to life.

304pp
Published: February 2006
Listening time: 9 hours, 7 minutes

 

Theme: Sentimental by Alexander O'Neal