Mother of Pearl

Rating:
Summary: take it slow---don't miss a word.
Review: "Mother of Pearl" by Melinda B. Haynes is written in a time before I was born. The events focus around the year 1956. PLEASE Do Not rush through these chapters. Melinda can say more in one sentence than many authors say in a lifetime. I was pulled back in time. I am a white female. After reading this book, I can say that I have been inside the mind and heart of Grace, Even, Cannan and Joody-all black. I found myself pulling for them and wanting to spit in the eyes of the local white folks. During the flood sceen in the truck , I laughed out loud so hard it hurt. Father Russ was so refreshing--when Joleb loses all hope and peace--Father Russ reaches inside and loves Joleb, showing the true love of Christ . I wish I had this Father Russ to talk to sometimes. I miss Even. He was the strong one--I see his face today. I long to hear from him again. Hint...Hint..... I have seen the paintings of Melinda Haynes and she is a wonderful talented artist--this time she is painting the canvas with stokes of words that touch the center of your soul. READERS...... Take it slow.

Rating:
Summary: Feel like I wasted my time.
Review: I should have given up on this book early on but I stubbornly stuck with it. The story did get a little better...but I still feel as though I wasted my time.

Rating:
Summary: Don't give up on this one!
Review: I'll admit, like some of the other reviewers, I thought the story got off to a slow start. There were alot of characters to keep track of and the author seemed to jump from one line of thought into a completely different plot line. I listened to the book on audio and had to really pay attention as it was a little hard to follow at times. But I'm glad I stuck with it, because all the characters did eventually tie together and I found myself loving this story. I liked the way Valuable got along with the black people in her community, and especially liked Joody Twoson (I hope I'm spelling it correctly as I didn't see it in print.) She was able to "read" people and I thought it added a lot of interest to the story. I would recommend that those who gave up at page 100, go back and try it again. It turned out to be one of the best books Oprah has picked in my opinion and I've read most of them.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining look at 1950's Mississippi
Review: In 1956 Petal, Mississippi, Black Even Grade and local seer Joody Two Sun become lovers. Not long after that Even meets teenage white girl Valuable Korner, whose mother is the town hooker. Though he loves the weird Joody, Even understands Valuable's need of family as he himself was abandoned by his mother almost three decades ago.

Meanwhile, Valuable falls in love with her neighbor Jackson McLain. However, when Valuable becomes pregnant, Jackson flees town. Still, she dreams of taking care of her "Pearl" as she calls her unborn child. However, the young girl knows her family will provide no help. She turns to Joody and Valuable to help her through her pregnancy.

MOTHER OF PEARL provides readers with a taste of small town Mississipi in the early stages of the Civil Rights movement. None of the characters seem to permanently hook the reader as much as the setting does. However, what Melinda Haynes does do is imbue her characters with human flaws and attributes that change as they do. Thouh the varying misfortunes of each of the ensemble cast overwhelms the audience at times, readers will know wht this novel is a selection of Oprah's Book Club.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Hard on the eyes? Try your ears instead!
Review: The mannerism of Nana Visitor's reading style on the audio version of this book literally breathes life into these wonderfully, diverse characters. Her intelligent technique of knowing when to ebb and when to flow, and her flawless presentation of each character's personality and "voice", gives well-earned justice to Ms. Haynes unique writing style.

Admittedly, even on audio, there were parts of the first chapter that were so full of metaphor and prose that it took a while to find the rythmic niche... but only momentarily. The story was so intriguing, and Nana so adept in her presentation, that I began to marvel not only at its unfolding tale, but at the way it was read. The story of the relationships between these wonderful, interesting characters... full of diversity, twists, and insight, is one I'll not soon forget.

Rating:
Summary: Pearl is a boy; his mother is a seer.....
Review: This novel is the story of 28-yr-old Even Grade who grew up as an orphan in Mississippi and Joody, a seer, the mother of Pearl (a grey-eyed male). Opening in 1956 in the magnolia state where the two meet; ending five years later (1961) in Alabama, the cotton state, when Pearl is four and his friend Sophy Marie (named after Sophocles) is three. She's the daughter of Grace and Cannan Mosley. Pearl had said, "Girls don't like to be bossed." She uses the Negro language of the fifties.

When I was eleven, I had a half-sister named Mary Ruth Mosley whose mother died and, subsequently, the 3-yr-old child was adopted by someone from her mother's family. The name Mosley brought back memories of the loss of a little girl I loved very much.

This is promoted as a tale of the search for identify and the power of renewal. It is based on one of the stories Ray Haynes passed on to his wife. She uses these quotes (which are signifigant): "Fate has terrible power. You cannot escape it by wealth or war. No fort will keep it out, no ships outrun it" by Sophocles. "Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders," by William Faulkner who knew the South and its inhabitants better than almost any other writer.

Rating:
Summary: Not what it's cracked up to be!
Review: This story centers around two people: Even Grade and Valuable Korner. Even is an orphan. Valuable is the daughter of the town whore and an unknown father trying to find herself. Along this journey, she falls in love with a young man named Jackson who is acually a close relative of hers although neither of them are aware of it. Even is a working man who has made a life for himself in Mississippi with his good friend, Canaan, and flaky girlfriend, Joody, who is a fortune-teller. When Even and Valuable's paths cross about two-thirds into the book, they find something of themselves in the other and the story really begins to pick up and get interesting. Until then, however, it takes a lot of perseverance to keep reading. It took me about two months to read this book which is uncharacteristically long for me. The storyline is powerful, but the writing is atrocious. It's hard to get past bad writing sometimes and this was one of those cases for me.