Melinda Haynes

Review: >b>Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes 1* 03/13/2023
Well as you can see, I didn't care for the book. I tried to read it back in March 2023 and am now writing my review. I only got as far as 133 pages. The setting of the story was in Mississippi in the 1950s. There are many characters in this story and I tried not to get confused but I did. Plus, I didn't like the contrast between the white and black people. There were also discrimination and social barriers within the content that I read.… (plus d'informations)

The story begins in 1956 in a poor small farming town, Petals, Mississippi, where the author's father really was a preacher for the first seven years of her life. Although well-written for a person who did not attend college and even dropped out of high school in her eleventh year, I was really bored with the story. Normally, I'll read at least 4 books a month on these challenges, but this one took me 20 days, a couple hours here and a couple of hours there. I kept falling asleep and dreaded getting back to it. It was even an Oprah Book Club pick back in 1999. But, I felt the character's inner thoughts just went on and on and on and there was too much jumping back and forth between all the characters for me to fully appreciate them. OR...maybe it was the fact that I just recently read a book very similar, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, and wasn't in the mood for another one of these stories. They had the same theme, racial tension in small southern town, and full of characters with oddball names and broken families.

Even Grade, a 27 year old black man having an affair with the homeless psychic woman, Joody Two Sun, living in the woods down at the river by the bridge.

Canaan, an old uneducated man who loved to read and learn and was having an affair with the widow, Grace, who was maid and caretaker for the strange, super-disfunctional and racists Green family. Joleb Green, age 16, kills his invalid mother, who Grace was caring for.

The star was Valuable Korner, the mother of the illegitimate baby boy named Pearl. She died giving birth to Pearl. Valuable lived with her whore of a mother, Enid, until she ran out on her again. Valuable was then forced to live with her two gay aunts, Neva and Bea, who didn't want nothing to do with her baby when they found out she was pregnant at age 15 by a 17 year old towns boy named Jackson, who also happened to be her half-brother.

Valuable found out that her grandfather, who had long past, was a Klu Klux Klan and hung a black man and murdered his baby boy with him, which happened to be Grace's husband and baby from way back.

After Valuable's death, a full circle was made. Pearl, although white, ended up in the arms of a black family, Even Grade and Joody Two Sun. Grace and old man Canaan married and had a daughter one year later. They would meet at the bridge so the two children, one white and one black, could play together.… (plus d'informations)

I could relate to the games people played within their relationships and with themselves. It was fascinating to watch various characters begin to tire of their games, see how they hit a wall, and then struggle to learn new behaviors. Through finding themselves, they rediscover each other and vice versa. I think the novel is a great lesson in how while it isn't painless to live an honest life (as in authentic), it is much more rewarding and does make life easier in some ways.

It disturbed me that Sonny leaves Joe to die in the tunnel. This scene seemed a bit too dark for the rest of the novel. Joe is a scumbag and I figured he'd get what's coming to him. However, I had become a bit sympathetic towards Sonny and was hopeful about his future prospects, but to have a new start as the result of Joe's horrible, preventable death really causes me to question Sonny's ability to ever have a strong and stable foundation. But then, perhaps he'll never quit playing games.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. At first I thought it was corny that Haynes had the climax--which I see as when most of the characters reach their own sense of independence from their own games--leading up to America's Independence Day, but then, perhaps, I have a small streak of cynicism. Issues about the land are threaded through the book, so the 4th of July aspect works on a broader level, too.… (plus d'informations)