Getting Mother's Body

Starred review from May 19, 2003
Parks, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for her play Topdog/Underdog, puts her dramatic skills to good use in this fluid, assured debut novel, the story of a sweaty road trip from Texas to Arizona in July 1963. When stubborn 16-year-old Billy Beede gets knocked up and jilted by her sweet-talking, coffin-salesman lover, she needs money for an abortion. Her wild mother, Willa Mae, died when Billy was 10, and Billy lives with her "childless churchless minister Uncle and one-legged church-hopping Aunt" in a mobile home behind their rural Texas gas station. Billy's only hope for serious cash is to dig up her mother's body from its grave in LaJunta, Ariz., where Willa Mae was buried wearing a diamond ring and a pearl necklace. That, at least, is the story told by Willa Mae's one-time lover, Dill, a six-foot-tall "bulldagger, dyke, lezzy, what-have-you." Billy steals Dill's truck and, together with her aunt and uncle, embarks on a trip to Arizona to find her mother's body, her mother's treasure and her mother's memory. With disgruntled Dill in hot pursuit (chauffeured by Billy's dogged suitor, Laz, misfit son of the local funeral parlor owner), the three travel through the racist Southwest, meeting up with relatives, friends and foes. Parks narrates her brief chapters from the point of view of different characters, giving each a distinctive voice; blues songs are interwoven with the text. Parks's influences are evident—among them Zora Neale Hurston and Faulkner's As I Lay Dying—but the novel's easy grace and infectious rhythms are all her own. Fueled by irresistible, infectious talk and prose that swings like speech, this novel begs (no surprise) to be read aloud. (May)Forecast:Few playwrights enjoy the kind of success Parks has at such a young age (she was born in 1964), and few make such a seamless transition to fiction. Her reputation and the quality of this novel should fuel impressive sales. 8-city author tour.

November 15, 2003
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Parks (Topdog/Underdog) narrates her own fiction debut. Writing in short sections, with shifting points of view, she presents a portrait of black life in the South in 1963: Billy is 16 and pregnant, her mother is dead, her mother's lover was a woman whom she assumed for the first three months was a man, her preacher uncle has lost not only his church but his faith, her aunt has lost her leg, her mother's gravesite is about to be buried under a concrete shopping center, and the story is going around that her mother was buried with all her jewels. This has all the potential for a wonderful tour de force, but midway through the performance the writing becomes predictable and the fascinating premise is never fully developed. Still, Parks's fame as a playwright will probably mean a lot of interest in her presentation here-and it is excellent. For larger collections.-Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 2, 2003
Audio reviews reflect PW's assessment of the audio adaptation of a book and should be quoted only in reference to the audio version. Fiction GETTING MOTHER'S BODY Suzan-Lori Parks, read by the author. Random House Audio, unabridged, six CDs, 7.5 hrs., $31.95 ISBN 0-7393-0297-3 With credentials including the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama (Topdog/Underdog) and a feature film directed by Spike Lee (Girl 6), Parks makes an impressive foray into fiction writing. This superbly recorded audio adaptation of her debut, replete with instrumental interludes and blues songs sung by the author (who's also a songwriter), is further enlivened by Parks's own compelling, unabridged reading. Her voice is clearly invested in the book's downtrodden African-American characters, and she portrays their grim realities with indelible humor. Pregnant Texas teenager Billy Beede has been raised for the past six years by her aunt and uncle in a mobile home following the death of her conniving mother, Willa Mae, from a botched abortion. Billy gets the disconcerting news her mom's remains must be moved for construction of a shopping center, and Willa Mae is rumored to have been buried with a fortune in jewels. Billy's just discovered she's inherited her mom's knack for seeing "the hole," or blind spot that lets you get what you want in people, so she sets off for the Arizona grave site. Set in the summer of 1963, and recounted in a slow, Southern drawl befitting the mood, the story unravels from a myriad of viewpoints, including the no-good custom coffin salesman who's fathered Billy's unborn baby, the one-legged neighbor in love with Billy, and her deceased mother's feisty lesbian lover. Simultaneous release with the Random hardcover (Forecasts, May 19).