Po Man's Child

Rating:
Summary: WINNER! Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Fiction!
Review: In 'Po Man's Child', Blackman skillfully interweaves three crucial days in the life of the protagonist Po, with a depiction of her earlier years and the family whose 'curse' she shares. This remarkable first novel, full of memorable characters, conveys both the despair of mean lives and the hope of human empowerment.

Rating:
Summary: Glad i read it
Review: Po man's child is the story of Po who's a lesbian who at the beginning of the book has checked herself until a mental hospial. She also has problem with cutting herself all the time. The book is mostly Po thinking back while she is in the hospital of her youth, we meet her Uncle Ray who's always trying to kill hisself but is never successful, we also meet her brother who only wants to talk to his imaginary friends, her parents, and her grandmother. Po and her white lover Mary always like to play games with cutting themselves. You want want to miss reading this book, it is really good.

Rating:
Summary: Intense and expertly imagined
Review: The novel opens with a lesbian S&M scene through which the author reveals a family history informed by tragedy and adversity so bizarre that the family believes they are cursed. The family history is told by Po, the youngest of three children born to the Childs'. The children grow up believing that deceased relatives make regular visits to the family to foretell the onset of happy or sad times. Uncle Ray is determined to kill himself and the family endures multiple failed attempts on his part to achieve his goal. Having grown up in an environment where ghosts abound and insanity flourishes, the children develop coping mechanisms that allow them to survive the family but lose themselves. From drug addiction to self-mutilation to family abandonment, the Childs' children attempt to cover up, or perhaps unleash, the pain of generations of trauma.

"Po Man's Child" accomplishes many things on many levels. The novel is steeped in supernatural beliefs and familial experiences that shape the lives of the characters in self-destructive ways. The story demonstrates how one's inability to challenge and resist beliefs that do not enrich their lives will only lead to destroying it. Blackman has written a highly symbolic, multi-layered narrative that informs and entertains. The writing is superb. The story is intense and expertly imagined. This is a fabulous debut novel by an extremely skilled and daring writer. I look forward to more of her work. Highly Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: a must read for anyone intersted in the American family
Review: This book is wonderful. Ms. Blackman's prose are like poetry, and the complexity of the story builds and really draws you in. She paints her characters with colorful detail, and the language is so authentic you feel like you are part of the family in her story. While some may focus their attention on the two S/M scenes, this novel is really about one woman's healing, as she comes to terms with with her life and history as an African American growing up in the seventies. This book will make you laugh, cry, and think.

Rating:
Summary: WINNER! Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Fiction!
Review: This complex and compelling first novel about pain in its many manifestations has incredible resonance - certainly an award-winning, worthwhile read!