Book Report

I’m reading one of “THOSE” books right now.
You know what I’m talking about,
one that immediately digs at you so deep.
All up in those nooks & crannies like too tight Spanx or Marvin Gaye a cappella.
Fingers twitching, heart skip.
Nervous laughter which cannot be explained or contained.
So much truth.
Too much truth.
I can’t even recall purchasing the book
how long I’ve had it
or why I picked it up again so randomly the other night.
Had to be a garage sale, right?
25-cent pages already smudged neon.
No product of an overzealous highlighter.
The last reader so clearly enthralled she couldn’t be bothered to put down the damn book THEN the damn Cheetos.
Wouldn’t take the time to wash hands cos a dry paper towel can’t begin to fight that orange sticky.
Sometimes you won’t risk losing the moment.
So, you clumsily turn those pages anyway.
She had to keep reading. Persevere. See that shit thru.
Like me. With me.
A comforting reminder that all her readers are in this together.

Story set in the 60’s.
Before the Civil Rights Act pretended to end segregation.
Some backwoods Texas town.
Black, if not predominately, then preeminently.
Sing-songy prose. Dynamic storytelling. Flawless description.
All converging into something so awful.
I can feel it coming.
Something so terrible I had to just quit reading.
Like not take a breath or pee break.
I had to quit reading.
Tap out.
The impetus, the soul-crusher, is going to be mass defilement at the hands of white men.
All signs are pointing to it.
There is no other way for the plot, so exquisitely laid out, to otherwise MOVE.
Black heads will roll.
Black bodies will burn.
Nothing will cauterize.
Generations will be adversely affected by their wickedness.
In 10 more pages, or less, it’s coming.
And, frankly, I’m just not in the mood.

***Getting Mother’s Body by Suzan-Lori Parks is simply one of the best books I’ve read in a long while. Of course I ended up finishing it. And without giving anything away, it did not end at all as I expected.
Icing on the cake.