Rating: 
Summary: All's Well That Ends Well
Review: "Where my panties at?" are the great opening lines of this wondrous comic novel; but you "aint seen nothing" yet. The critics insist on saying Ms. Parks is influenced here by William Faulkner's AS I LAY DYING, something I don't see much of although I did hear her in an interview recently say nice things about Faulkner. Ms. Parks is certainly a classy lady.And she has written a classy novel. Billy Beede, named after Billie Holiday in spite of the spelling of her first name, is sixteen, unmarried and pregnant. She is joined by a host of other motley characters: Dill Smiles. . . "the most honest person I know, even if she ain't nothing but a bulldagger." Then there's Roosevelt Beede, a minister who no longer preaches; his wife June Flowers Beede, who only has one leg; Laz Jackson, named for Lazarus in the New Testament because he was born not breathing, who wants to marry Billy even though he is not the father of her unborn child--actually he's still a virgin when the novel begins--and of course Willa Mae Beede, Billy's mother and Dill's former lover, who is now in her grave and may have been buried with previous gems. There are several other minor characters, just as interesting, not the least of which is Homer Beede Rochfoucault, the son of a Morehouse man and a Spelman graduate. There's also a sympathetic white deputy sheriff, someone we might not expect to find in 1963, the year this novel takes place. Told from several points of view-- perhaps the writer is influenced by Faulkner after all-- the novel ultimately is about the importance of family. These characters-- most of them either dirt poor or, in the case of Homer and his mother, people who have suffered a reversal of fortune-- are as strong as the state of Texas. Like Faulkner's Dilsey in THE SOUND AND THE FURY, they endure. That Ms. Parks first made her mark as a dramatist-- she won the Pulitzer for her play TOPDOG/UNDERDOG-- is obvious from the language here as one dialogue builds on another. For all these characters' misfortunes-- and they suffer many-- you will feel good about the ending of this story. Billy says: "Going back home we made good time. I think we did all right." Ms. Parks does much better than "all right" in this poignant, bittersweet novel.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, Adventurous novel
Review: Full of gossip and adventure, Getting Mother's Body is the story of a few small-town folks with big dreams. Billy Beede, the daughter of six-years dead Willa Mae Beede finds herself in this novel. Pregnant and given a deadline of one week, Billy needs abortion money fast. Uncle and aunt in tow, they set off on a mission that leads from Texas to Arizona to dig up Willa Mae's body and the rumored treasure that was buried with her. Along the way this sad group of Beedes reminise over the life and tragic death of Willa Mae and how their own lifes have changed over the years. Dill Smiles, Willa Mae's lover, has a secret of her own though, and with murder on her mind sets off hot on Billy's trail. This book was a really fun read. I enjoyed each and every page. Good authors make their characters real and Parks does this grandly, I could even feel the Arizona heat and Texas dust. Don't browse over this novel. Superb!
Rating:
Summary: Fun, Adventurous novel
Review: Full of gossip and adventure, Getting Mother's Body is the story of a few small-town folks with big dreams. Billy Beede, the daughter of six-years dead Willa Mae Beede finds herself in this novel. Pregnant and given a deadline of one week, Billy needs abortion money fast. Uncle and aunt in tow, they set off on a mission that leads from Texas to Arizona to dig up Willa Mae's body and the rumored treasure that was buried with her. Along the way this sad group of Beedes reminise over the life and tragic death of Willa Mae and how their own lifes have changed over the years. Dill Smiles, Willa Mae's lover, has a secret of her own though, and with murder on her mind sets off hot on Billy's trail. This book was a really fun read. I enjoyed each and every page. Good authors make their characters real and Parks does this grandly, I could even feel the Arizona heat and Texas dust. Don't browse over this novel. Superb!
Rating:
Summary: It didn't turn out like we planned
Review: Great story of a simple trial and error approach to life and some lessons learned along the way. I don't know how Parks ever came up with the basis for this book, but the characters are real and fun.
Even better is the style. The characters tell the story in their own words and we get to hear everyone's thoughts about everyone else. It is a fun look at how people communicate and don't communicate and how simple events in our lives -- even casual remarks -- can change the way people think and feel for years.
I read this book in Baghdad and had to email and call home with excerpts to share. This is a tremendous personification through the eyes and words of simple -- yet complex folk.
It is also a tale about love and sacrifice and how some people place their family above even their own wishes and desires, while they face their fears that they think can threaten their very happiness.
I can't equate the picture of the author with the depth of the lessons and the quality of this book.
There are a lot of frank thoughts and comments here dealing with the issues of love, sex, communication, racism and how we deal with each other. So be warned up front. If you are used to the standard novel of third person storytelling and linear chapters then you are in for a lesson in storytelling. But stick it out, in the end you will like the style.
It is a kind of "Butterfield 8" with a southern sharecropper touch.
Thanks Suzan
-Mike
Rating: 
Summary: Trying too hard?
Review: Having read "Getting Mother's Body" for a library book discussion group, I expected something out of my ordinary reading selection circle. And is it ever! I must say I enjoyed the book, though keeping characters' relationships straight was difficult--who is whose uncle? aunt? lover? brother? Furthermore, the characters' voices are simply too similar. They all sound alike, with their--pardon me for saying it--Ebonics English. Whether it is pregnant teen Billy Beede, her mother's lesbian lover's mother Candy Napoleon, or Laz Jackson, who has long has his "cap set for" Billy (despite her dislike of him), they all speak the same way--with "yr" and "I'ma" and "I says." I sometimes thought I was reading a high schooler's email! Finally, I wish authors would take the creative time to come up with original names for their characters, instead of borrowing them from previous literature. My complaint here is with Dill, the lesbian pig farmer. For me, Dill will always be the little boy from Meridian, Mississippi, in "To Kill a Mockingbird." What's to be gained from attaching that name to another character? The story line moves slowly, but is intriguing enough to keep a patient reader's interest, despite my qualifications of the way it is written.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Judge them, just ENJOY them
Review: I just discovered your website, or I would have written a year ago, when I read the book. I read an excerpt of it in Essence magazine while on a cruise in May 2003 and I bought the hard cover as soon as I got home. I give it 5 stars only because I can't give 6! I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and just recently mailed it to my friend in Florida. I told her not to judge the characters-just enjoy them! Many people in the book are "mojo"-meaning 'slow' and/or ignorant but I got a kick out of each and every one of them. What a refreshing book! I'll be looking out for more novels by Ms Parks.
Rating: 
Summary: Recommended by a librarian in Houston
Review: I read this fiction work on the recommendation of another librarian in Houston, and I was surprisingly won over by it. Suzan-Lori Parks is a terrific writer. Her characters don't so much as talk as sing to us, like a blues song, of their joys and miseries. Even if you don't care much for fiction, I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book I've read in Years
Review: One of those books you can not put down. I don't want to repeat what others have said. What I can tell you is that after being in a book group for over a year, this was the first book I actually finished early. I went to the Library to see if she had writen any others but she hadn't. She is a Playwright and
amazon sells them. We have Book club book bags at our library and this was one of them. When I read this book I could realy see the characters clearly, her descriptions were poetry. I felt I could feel there tears almost smell them. Keep writing Suzan-Lori your wonderful. Teach me to write like that. When will you have another play? Anyone seen any of them? Just Wonderful!!
Rating:
Summary: If Mother Only Knew¿.
Review: Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks's debut novel, Getting Mother's Body, has an affinity to William Faulkner's classic, As I Lay Dying, only this time, Parks has flipped the script in a couple of areas. First, instead of taking a body home to be buried, the characters are planning to exhume the remains of one "high-strung, party girl/singer," Willa Mae Beede; and secondly, the characters are African American, the setting is 1963 rural Texas, and the lead character is Billy Beede, a poor pregnant, unwed, high school dropout. After her mother's (Willa Mae) untimely demise, Billy is returned to Lincoln by her mother's lesbian lover, Dill Smiles, to live with her maternal uncle, Roosevelt, and his wife, June, in their trailer behind a gas station. Billy becomes pregnant by a married man and believes an abortion will solve all of her problems. To get the money for the procedure, she plans a journey back to Arizona to recover the small fortune (a pearl necklace and diamond ring) which according to Dill adorns Willa Mae's corpse. Billy is accompanied by an eccentric cast of characters, each with selfish desires for the treasure, each hoping it will "fill a hole." These "holes" run deep ranging from pride, envy, debt to lust, unrequited love, childlessness, and spiritual loss. Billy becomes an expert in recognizing "holes," i.e., finding one's weaknesses, and uses her 'gift' to manipulate her family and strangers to get what she wants---unknowingly becoming more like the con artist mother that she despises. This novel, told in first person by each lead character, causes the reader to experience the journey from differing viewpoints. Often times, the chapters represent character perspectives of the same event granting the reader the opportunity to "hear" multiple sides of the story. The author even interjects observations, blues songs, and ominous passages by the deceased Willa Mae. The use of monologues allows the reader to learn firsthand each character's motivation, vulnerabilities, and haunted pasts; these elements contributed to the novel's well-developed characters. This reviewer also enjoyed the writing style and the extensive use of regional dialect to add realism to the dialogue. Without a clue on how this story was going to end until the end, I was happy that the journey ultimately brought about some semblance of absolution and redemption for the motley crew, which was a welcomed relief for an otherwise dismal tale. There is a lot more to this story than this review covers; one has to read to appreciate all the author has to offer. Ms. Parks shows great promise and if you enjoy deviating from the "relationship drama" of modern contemporary fiction, you may enjoy this book. I think readers who enjoyed eclectic works like Lolita Files's Child of God and Olympia Vernon's Eden might appreciate this novel. Reviewed by Phyllis
APOOO BookClub
Rating:
Summary: Mama Didn't have any Jewels, or Did She?
Review: This fabulous story opens in 1960's Texas with a very pregnant Billy Beede doing the deed with a traveling coffinmaker, name of Snipes. She's worried about her panties as they're lost. Finished, she asks Snipes about marriage. She didn't want to do it, but he hadn't brought it up yet. Of course he'll marry her he says, but he's a lying you know what, who already has a wife, so he won't be coming back to dusty Lincoln, Texas anytime soon.
Billy was orphaned when she was ten and her mother, Willa Mae was buried where she died, in LaJunta, Arizona, a victim of a self inflicted abortion gone bad. Willa Mae was a blues singing grifter and her partner, the pig farmer Dill who everybody thought was a man until Willa Mae blew her cover, was the one who saw to her buriel. Rumor has it that she was buried wearing her jewels, a pearl necklace and a diamond ring, but Dill snatched them out of the coffin at the last minute.
Then Dill brought Billy back to Lincoln, a two day drive east, to live with her one-legged aunt June Flower Beede and her husband, an ex-preacher named Roosevelt who people call Teddy and the young girl grew up hating her mother.
When the coffinmaker scumbag leaves her high and dry, Billy starts to think about those jewels. She steals Dill's new truck and takes off with Roosevelt, June Flower and their nephew Homer to dig up mama. Oh, I forgot to mention the local mortician's son, Laz. He's been in love with Billy forever. He wound up with those missing panties. He and Dill take off after Billy and Teddy and I think I'll stop right here. If you don't see that this is just one heck of a fine book by now, you never will.
Wait, I should go on to say that Susan-Lori Spark has the language, the period, the characters down so cold that you'll be in that car with Billy, chasing after those jewels with her, feeling, seeing and believing with her. This is a touching story so well told that it's almost impossible to believe that it's just words on paper.
|
