It's a classic tale of an unintended teenage pregnancy and the ripple-like effect it has on so many lives, but in Woodson's hands this is a tale you've never heard before. Iris, a good Catholic girl from a stable, upstanding family, is 15 when she gets pregnant with Melody. Masterfully written by Jacqueline Woodson, this is a multigenerational story of a Black family living in Brooklyn, New York. This stunningly beautiful novel is very short, but I found myself taking longer to read it than the page count would indicate simply because I reread so many (many!) passages just to savor the sheer poetry of the words.
Oh, this book! And it's all because of the writing.
This Novel Is Nearly Perfect! The Lyrical Prose Transforms a Simple Story into a Masterpiece As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives-even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony- a celebration that ultimately never took place. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the soundtrack of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress.
Moving forward and backward in time, with the power of poetry and the emotional richness of a narrative ten times its length, Jacqueline Woodson's extraordinary new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of this child.Īs the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces. An extraordinary new novel about the influence of history on a contemporary family, from the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming.
0 kommentar(er)
