BEGIN:VCALENDAR METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN PRODID:-//EVDB//www.eventful.com//EN VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME:The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips Discussion in Washi ngton DC at Postal code 20052\, United States - Eventful BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART:20090207T150000 DTSTAMP:20081202T053940Z SUMMARY:The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips Discussion DESCRIPTION: We will be discussing The Darkest Child by Delores Phill ips. Phillips's searing debut reveals the poverty\, injustices and cru elties that one black family suffers—some of this at the hands of its matriarch—in a 1958 backwater Georgia town. Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn loves her mother\, Rozelle\, but knows there's "something wr ong" with her—which\, as it soon becomes clear\, is an extreme unders tatement. As the novel opens\, Rozelle is getting ready to give birth to her 10th child (by a 10th father) and thinking about forcing the ob edient Tangy Mae\, who longs to stay in school\, to take over her hous ecleaning job. Using a large cast of powerfully drawn characters\, Phi llips captures life in a town that serves as a microcosm of a world on the brink of change. There's Junior\, the perpetual optimist\, who wa nts to teach people to read and write so they can understand the injus tices of Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan\; Hambone\, a here today/g one tomorrow rabble-rouser whose anger against white men and their law s inflames those around him\; and Miss Pearl\, the only true friend to the Quinn family. At the dark heart of the story is Rozelle\, the bea utiful mixed-race head of the Quinn family whose erratic mood swings\, heart-wrenching cruelty and deep emotional distress leave an indelibl e mark on all her children. Through all the violence and hardship brea thes the remarkable spirit of Tangy Mae\, who is wise beyond her years \; forced to do unspeakable things by her mother and discriminated aga inst by the town's whites\, she manages to survive and to rescue a you nger sister from the same fate. From The Washington Post For readers w ho like their novels king-sized\, filled with grand plot events and cl early identifiable villains and victims\, Delores Phillips's debut nov el\, The Darkest Child\, will not disappoint. This story of an African -American mother and her large family is loaded with killings\, maimin gs and other sensational turns. Readers who prefer a more subtle explo ration of the nuances of characters and their situations may find them selves wishing for more restraint and a much closer look at the racial and familial complexities at the novel's center. The first-person nar rator\, Tangy Mae\, is 13 when the story begins in 1958\, and the life that she has with her nine siblings and their mother\, Rozelle Quinn\ , perhaps one of the most villainous characters in contemporary Americ an fiction\, is one of degradation and brutality. Rozelle not only tri es to keep her children from escaping her with such vicious tactics as frequent beatings\, ice picks driven through hands and hot pokers use d for brandings\, she also forces her daughters to provide sexual favo rs to the men of Pakersfield\, Ga.\, in return for money. Tangy Mae st ands out because she is the darkest-skinned of Rozelle's children\, an d also because she is the most intelligent\, the one who loves school and learning and who dreams of a different life for herself. What are we to make\, for example\, of the fact that\, in spite of Rozelle's de spicable behavior\, so many of her adult children believe that they ha ve no recourse but to honor her? After she deliberately drops Judy\, t he baby of the family\, into a gully\, killing her\, how are we to acc ept that Tangy begins to doubt what she has already described for us i n vivid and exact detail: "Mama stood at the edge of the porch danglin g our baby sister over the side by one arm. As Martha Jean rushed towa rd them\, Mama swung out once\, twice. . . .With my hands to my throat \, I waited for a third swing that never came. Mama\, staring blankly into space\, opened her hand and released Judy. I saw my baby sister s ail through the air\, flipping and jerking\, as she began a descent th at took her over the rocky incline and down into the gully." When Roze lle claims that she had merely been playing with the baby and that Jud y had kicked herself free from her grasp and fallen\, Tangy finds her mother's story convincing\, thinking that no mother would be capable o f such outright cruelty. This comes at a point in the novel when Tangy has already witnessed and been the victim herself of similar brutalit ies that her mother has levied against her children: the beatings and brandings and stabbings. Tangy knows that her mother is prone to fits of delusion and paranoia\, to the point that one day Rozelle becomes c onvinced that Satan has come into the house and "crawled in that baby. " That Tangy comes to believe that her mother never meant to hurt her children\, that she was "a gentle woman" is more than the persistence of a daughter wanting to believe in her mother's love. It is a feeble\ , belated attempt to add dimension to the character of Rozelle. It fee ls imposed rather than growing organically from the story and the cons ciousness that presents the tale to us. It is a distortion of the trut h that the narrative spins\, a truth to which the narrator remains bli nd for too long: Rozelle Quinn is a wicked\, dangerous woman\, beyond redemption.\n LOCATION:Postal code 20052\, United States @ Washington, District of C olumbia 20052 United States SEQUENCE:1228196380 UID:E0-001-015689382-9 URL:http://eventful.com/E0-001-015689382-9 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR