Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Dolen and Me!

Dolen Perkins-Valdez can sho’ nuff tell a story.....

I read her debut novel Wench, and just let me tell you, I can talk about Wench all day long. Every time that I am with people and books come up, I have to mention Wench. 

So, I met Dolen a few weeks back, and of course I had to tell her about my love for Wench. I hope that Dolen did not think I was completely crazy, because first of all, I could not believe that I was actually talking to her, and I had to try to contain my joy. Then, I couldn’t stop myself from talking about her and her book and this literary movement that she and some other women of color are spearheading.

These women of color are writing about love and Black folks with such care and dignity and it is causing much excitement much like the excitement that Zora Neale Hurston must have caused when she wrote about that passionate, respectful, feel-good love between Janie and Teacake in Their Eyes Were Watching God.... strong female characters who love and are loved back.

Now, I don’t want anyone to think that Balm, Til the Well Runs Dry, Land of Love Drowning, or Their Eyes Were Watching God or any of those other novels written by women of color are just about love. Yes, they are love stories, and soooo much more.

Balm is set right after The Civil War, and we meet Madge who has magically hands, Sadie who can speak to the dead, and Hemp who is an ex-slave who is frantically searching for his wife.

With this novel, one of the themes that Dolen deals with is the theme of “letting go of that shit that’s holding you back,” as stated by Toni Morrison in Song of Solomon. All three characters had to deal with their past in order to fly. And, once they made peace with the past, everything was all right...

However, the love part of this story really spoke to my heart. I won’t share much about that part, but know that when I got to the end of part one, I started crying uncontrollable while I was sitting in Whole Foods... Yep, I cried, and cried, and cried!

And my emotional outbreaks leads me to talk about Dolen’s writing style.....

Dolen uses well crafted storytelling in order to tell every major and a few minor characters' stories. I felt like I knew these characters, and when one character used her entire body to take away another character’s pain, this evoked emotions that I did not know I had, and I cried, and cried, and cried. I could feel his pain, and I could feel the other character’s desire to help him with the one thing that she  knew that he needed, her body.

Near the end of the novel Dolen states “The sisters had preached self-reliance, but the real thing was community.” This theme also resonated through the entire novel, and Dolen cleverly drove home the point that people need other people. I just loved the sense of community that’s all over this book.

My people, I LOVED EVERY WORD OF THIS NOVEL, and you MUST read it soon......

This is a sho’ nuff good one!

The African American Female Writer....

It seems as if The African American female writer is taking the world by storm.....

The Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is releasing a new novel in April titled God Help the Child. Based on the number of articles that I have read about this novel, I don't think that I am the only person who is excited about this news.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is definitely setting the world on fire....

Her novels, Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus, Americanah, and The Thing Around Your Neck, are referenced a lot in the literary world. Her TED talk is absolutely thought-provoking. And, when I am with people who love books, Adichie's name is sure to be mentioned.

Cynthia Bond

Natalie Baszile

Cynthia Bond and Natalie Baszile have both been touched by The Oprah Winfrey.

Cynthia Bond's novel, Ruby, is Oprah's latest book club selection, and you should hear Oprah go on and on about this novel; I definitely put it on my list.

Natalie Baszil's book, Queen Sugar, is being made into a drama series for the OWN network, and I can't wait to read this book as well.

We all know what can happen to a writer's career after she is touched by Oprah. 

Morowa Yejide

I am currently reading Morowa Yeide's novel titled Time of the Locust. Yejida was a finalist for the national PEN/Bellwether Prize and is a 2015 NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Work.

Other African American Female Writers who are buzzing are Attica Locke, Lauren-Francis Sharma, Tayari Jones, Octavia Butler, Edwidge Danticat, Delores Philip, Tananarive Due, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Ayana Mathis, and there are soooo many more out there!

When historians write about this time period, they sho' better include the African American Female Writer!

This Is The Day...Let's Rejoice and Be Glad.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

I always say that I don't want another degree, but if I ever go back to school, I will be in somebody's PhD program in the Anthropology or Women's History department studying and researching women and our rich history.

When you read diverse literature and also when you read history, women have really suffered. A few years back, one of my students wrote a research paper about women during the Holocaust, and I wanted to cry a river. She wrote about women having cycles, giving birth, seeing their children killed, being pregnant, getting rape and getting pregnant all while being in a concentration camp. In Afghanistan, some of the first restrictions that were place by the Taliban were against women and boy were they severe. Reading some of those stories is enough to make someone want to start a revolution and free all of the Afghan women. There are so many books written about the African woman who was turned into a slave, but the novel Wench, by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, tells a tale that I have never heard before: slaveholders taking their slave mistresses to resorts for the summer in Ohio. The characters are all fictional, but the situation is not.

Dolen can write, that's all that I can say. This story is very captivating, because we get to know the characters quite well, she cleverly gives enough background information to help with understanding, and she tells a tale that really is not known, or should I say, it's a side of slavery that was not known to me.

She has characters that I really loved and others that I really wanted to understand. She shows sides of African women who were turned into slaves that really made me think and other sides that made me so proud to be of African descent.

I truly believe that everyone, but especially women, need to know the history of women world wide so that we can know women's strength and weakness.

If you find me in school somewhere, I'll be buried in a library, in the stacks, yes the stacks, studying women's history with many other people who value our history.

All praises to Dolen who is telling this part of slavery that needs to be told. You Go Girl!!

Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Please click on the link below to hear Dolen talk about this book:

People, get to reading! There is a whole lot to know out there........