LitPicks - November '07

Sons and Mothers: a connection like no other—born of intensity, bound by love, and fed by dreams. The November selections explore how the lives of three men are shaped, for better or worse, by their mothers' ambitions.

A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully Written | Great Works



The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
James McBride, 1996
352 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
For years James McBride was puzzled, even repulsed by his mother. She was strange. The mother of 12 African-American children, she rode a bicycle, spoke Yiddish and was, as she put it, "light skinned." She evaded any question about her background with "God made me." She was, in fact, far stranger than McBride suspected.

It isn't until well into adulthood that McBride learns her story. Ruth McBride Jordan, aka Ruchel Dwara Zylska, is a Polish Jew. She immigrated to the U.S. as a child, was raised in Virginia by her abusive Orthodox Rabbi father, ran away at 17, married a black man in New York's Harlem, converted to Christianity, and eventually bore 12 children. You couldn't make that stuff up.

We learn all this through the childhood eyes—and the adult pen—of McBride, who in a series of interviews elicits her story. Interspersed with her history (in italics) are McBride's own childhood recollections. In the process, he discovers much about himself—it is his own journey of self-identity.

The writing can be funny and heartwarming, peppered with some of Ruth's homespun wisdom: "Mommy... acted as chief surgeon for bruises ('Put iodine on it)...chief psychologist ('Don't think about it'), and financial advisor ('What's money if your mind is empty?')." There are moments of horror and disgust regarding Ruth's father. And passages of deep sadness surrounding her first husband, Dennis McBride, who died while she carried James.

Although their lives were embedded in poverty and utter chaos, Ruth manages to send all 12 of her children to the best schools in Manhattan, every one of them to college, and some to graduate school. This is a remarkable story—all the more so because it's true—and a "can't-put-it-down" page-turner.

Be sure to see our Reading Guide for The Color of Water.


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Empire Falls
Richard Russo, 2001
496 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Richard Russo writes with tremendous skill, lucidity, humor, humanity, poignancy, percep ... sorry, I can't seem to end this sentence. But you see where I'm headed. Empire Falls is a good book, more than good.

Adhering to his penchant for writing about the working class, Russo follows the lives of those who eke out an existence in a once prosperous Maine town, now rusted out like the old textile mill at the end of the main street. It's a story of stifled dreams or, more precisely, of those afraid even to have dreams.

Russo's characters are a rich combination of humor and despondency. They inhabit minds that have thoughts like this one from Miles Roby, the central character whose wife is divorcing him: "For Miles, one of the great mysteries of marriage was that you had to actually say things before you realized they were wrong." It's similar to the quip that circulates on the internet: "if a man is alone in the woods and speaks, is he wrong?" But Miles's insight is more poignant—and gets better:

Of course, the other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong, but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get. Wrong, all of it... by virtue of the fact that Miles himself was saying it.

Humorous as it is, the passage sums up how Miles lives his life—in the zone of wrong and more wrong. This book is about whether Miles will realize his mother's dreams—can he rise above his circumstances and get it right? We get a hint of just how tough that will be for him when he contemplates having to paint the church steeple. He's terrified: "For all his early promise, Miles had scaled no heights." It's a nice symbol, and like the other symbols in a book heavy with them, it is tossed off deftly.

Although the story is told in the present, Russo sweeps in the past. We watch events that occurred long ago play out, years later, with seeming inevitability—like the river on which the town sits. The story works its way to its climax with few surprises because Russo has carefully prepared us. Unfortunately, though, the final pages are...well, silly, a bit over the top (they involve a cat). But by this time, who cares. Russo is just too good. Do not miss this.

There is a 4-hour TV film adaptation but despite a solid cast, it's not all that good. In fact, it's surprisingly mediocre. Too bad. (Cast: Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward.)

See our LitLovers Reading Guide for Empire Falls.

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Sons and Lovers
D.H. Lawrence, 1913
481 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
If you've never read Lawrence, this is a good place to start—Sons and Lovers is an early novel, more conventional than his later works. It is also somewhat autobiographical.

The book recounts the struggle of young Paul Morel, the son of a miner, to establish himself in the middle-class and to break free—or not—of his mother's domineering love. It's also the story of Paul's mother, a woman of refined tastes who finds herself trapped in poverty and a loveless marriage. To compensate, she turns to her sons, first William, then Paul.

Sons is an incredibly rich work, and you can approach it in a number of ways: as a coming-of-age story; a psychological study of family conflict (Oedipus...hello?); an examination of class; a critique of industrialism; and a romance, in which three women fight for Paul's love. One of Lawrence's themes in this work (and many others) is the degree to which love must be grounded in both the physical and spiritual.

It's as much fun to read about Lawrence himself as it is to read his works. He is an endlessly fascinating character whose writing and personal life achieved notoriety. Although tame by today's standards, two of his works, The Rainbow (1915) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), were banned for their of sexual content. In 1912 when he was 27, Lawrence ran off with a married woman and mother of three, Frieda Weekley, six years his elder and the wife of one of his professors. They eventually married and remained together till Lawrence's death in 1930.

Check out Wikipedia for a quick biographical sketch. Also take LitCourse 9 (symbolism), which includes Lawrence's short story, "The Horse Dealer's Daughter."

Although in and out of literary fashion—initially, because of his open treatment of sexuality, occasionally, because of his overblown writing, and more recently, because of his depiction of women—Lawrence is, nonetheless, admired for his imagination, innovation, wide ranging intellect, and large body of work. Sons and Lovers is considered his masterpiece (second only to Women in Love) and is found on many "100 best books" lists. It's a great read—truly.


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