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Summary
Summary
Billy Beede, the teenage daughter of the fast-running, no-account, and six-years-dead Willa Mae, comes home one day to find a fateful letter waiting for her: Willa Mae's burial spot in LaJunta, Arizona, is about to be plowed up to make way for a supermarket. As Willa Mae's only daughter, Billy is heiress to her mother's substantial but unconfirmed fortune--a cache of jewels that Willa Mae's lover, Dill Smiles, is said to have buried with her. Dirt poor, living in a trailer with her Aunt June and Uncle Roosevelt behind a gas station in a tumbleweedy Texas town, and pregnant with an illegitimate child, Billy knows that treasure could mean salvation. So she steals Dill's pickup truck and, with her aunt and uncle in tow, heads for Arizona with Dill in hot pursuit. While everyone agrees it's only polite to speak of getting mother's body and moving her to a proper resting place, it's well understood that digging up Willa Mae's diamonds and pearls will make the whole trip a lot more worthwhile. The enormously accomplished fiction debut from Suzan-Lori Parks, the 2002 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama,GettingMother'sBodytakes its place in the company of the classic works of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker. But when it comes to an ingenious, uproarious knack for depicting the trifling, hard-luck, down-and-out souls who need a little singing and laughing and lying and praying to get through the day, Suzan-Lori Parks shares the stage with no one. From the Hardcover edition.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The Beedes are a hard-luck family living in a small Texas town in the 1960s, operating a gas station on a month-to-month contract with a stingy white man. Billy, 16 years old, is pregnant by a coffin salesman, whom she later discovers is married. She gets it in her head to go to LaJunta, Arizona, where her mother, Willa Mae, is buried with jewelry expensive enough to get Billy out of trouble. Willa Mae was a wild woman and a hustler who cheated most folks, including her daughter and her lover, Dill Smiles, a mannish woman who prefers to live as a male. Billy's uncle Teddy, a former minister who has lost his calling, and her aunt June, who lost a leg as a young woman, accompany Billy on her journey. Hot on their trail is Dill, whose truck Billy has "borrowed" for the trip. Pulitzer-winning playwright Parks offers a collection of exuberantly loony characters, longing for better lives and a means of realizing their meager dreams. Told from the perspective of each of the different characters, including the dead Willa Mae, this is a thoroughly riveting novel of love, family, and redemption. --Vanessa Bush
Kirkus Review
Faulkner gets an African-American rewrite in this first novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Topdog/Underdog, etc.). It's July 1963. Sixteen-year-old Billy Beede has been living in Lincoln, Texas, with her Uncle Roosevelt and Aunt June for six years, ever since her reckless, high-living mother Willa Mae died in Arizona. Willa Mae's lesbian lover, Dill Smiles, claims to have buried her with a pearl necklace and a diamond ring, and the grave is about to be plowed up and paved over by a supermarket developer. When pregnant Billy discovers that her lover is married, she heads for Arizona to unearth the jewelry to pay for an abortion. The angry teenager professes to have no feelings for her "liar and cheat" of a mother, but, as she employs Willa Mae's con-artist tricks to make her way west, Billy begins uncovering a deeper meaning in what Willa Mae called "The Hole," a quality that she identified in people only so "she'd know how to take them." All the characters here have Holes: Roosevelt has lost his church and his vocation as a minister; he and June can't have children; Dill endured Willa Mae cheating on her with men; neighbor Laz Jackson watches his beloved Billy dally with a smooth-talking adulterer; Roosevelt's widowed cousin Star struggles with bill collectors and the shame of not being able to keep son Homer in college. Playing to her strengths as a dramatist, Parks constructs the narrative as a series of first-person monologues, including several blues-drenched soliloquies by the defunct Willa Mae. Echoes of As I Lay Dying, the characters' concerns swirl around their relationships with a dead woman whose decayed body offers an uncomfortable reminder of what awaits them all. The muted happy ending doesn't have Faulkner's biblical grandeur, but we're glad to see Parks's hard-pressed men and women get a break. More conventional in form and less excitingly engaged with American history than her plays, but good enough to cause hope that more may come. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
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(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Excerpts
Excerpts
BILLY BEEDE "Where my panties at?" I asks him. Snipes don't say nothing. He don't like to talk when he's in the middle of it. "I think I lost my panties," I says but Snipes ain't hearing. He got his eyes closed, his mouth smiling, his face wet with sweat. In the middle of it, up there on top of me, going in and out. Not on top of me really, more like on top of the side of me cause he didn't want my baby-belly getting in his way. He didn't say so, he ain't said nothing bout the baby yet, but I seen him looking at my belly and I know he's thinking about it, somewhere in his mind. We're in the backseat of his Galaxie. A Ford. Bright lemon colored outside, inside the color of new butter. My head taps against the door handle as he goes at it. "Huh. Huh. Huh," Snipes goes. In a minute my head's gonna hurt. But it don't hurt yet. "Where--" I go but he draws his finger down over my lips, hushing them so I don't finish, then he rubs my titty, moving his hand in a quick circle like he's polishing it. I try scootching down along the seat, away from the door, but when I scootch, Snipes' going at it scootches me right back up against the door handle again. I wonder if my baby's sitting in me upside down and if Snipes' thing is hitting it on its head like the door handle is hitting me on mines. "Ow," I go. Cause now my head hurts. "Owww," Snipes go. Cause he's through. He lays there for a minute then pulls himself out of me and gets out the car. He closes up his pants while he looks down the road. Zipper then belt. In my head I can see all the little seeds he just sowed in me.All them little Snipeses running up inside me looking for somewheres to plant. But there's a baby up in me already, a Baby Snipes. Baby Snipes knocks down the Little Snipes Seeds as fast as they come up. "How you doing?" Snipes asks. "Mmokay." I turn from my side onto my back, raising up on both elbows. My housedress is all open and the baby makes a hump. Snipes turns to look at me, his gold-colored eyes staying on mines, seeing the hump without really seeing it. He ducks into the front seat, getting his Chesterfields out his shirt pocket, and standing there with his back to me, smoking in just his undershirt. "Penny for yr thoughts," I go but he don't turn around or say nothing. I sit up, buckling my bra and taking a look around for my panties, first in the front seat then running my hand between the backseat and the seat back, thinking my panties mighta got stuck in between but not finding nothing. Then I do feel a scrap of something and give it a yank. Big red shiny drawers. Not mines. Snipes turns around and sees me holding them. "My sister's," he says smiling and putting on his shirt. "I let her use my car sometimes." I stuff the drawers back where I found them, first leaving a little red tail sticking out, then stuffing them back in all the way. "I didn't know you had no sister," I says. "I don't know nothing about you." "Whatchu need to know?" he says. "What's her name?" "Who?" "Yr sister." "Alberta," he says. Then he turns away showing me the side of his face, shaved clean and right-angled as my elbow. He's smiling hard, but not at me. "Clifton, can I ask you something else?" "I'll get you some more panties, girl, don't worry," he says. An hour ago, when Snipes came to get me, I was doing Aunt June's hair. I heard his whistle. He weren't stopped at the pumps. He was stopped across the road, standing against his car looking cool, waiting for me to come outside but waiting cool, just in case I didn't show. I seen him and run across the road without even looking to see if cars was coming and he picked me up and swirled me around. Just like Harry Belafonte woulda. "You ain't been around in almost a month," I said, breathless from the swirling. "I been working, girl," he said. He got a custom-coffin business. He makes and sells handmade coffins in any shape you want with plush lining inside and everything. While we drove he showed me his sample book with three new photographs, proud, like folks show pictures of they children. A oak Cadillac, a guitar of cherry wood, and a pharaoh-style one too, all big enough to get buried inside, the new ones not painted yet so folks can pick out they own colors. "People been talking," I said. "What they saying?" "Stuff," I said. "They saying stuff." We kissed as we drove down the road and then I started laughing cause he was tickling me and getting me undressed and showing me his sample book and driving all at the same time. His left hand on the wheel, his right hand between my legs. Then we pulled off the road. Then we did it. Now we done. "I'll get you a whole damn carload full of panties, girl," he says. "Them panties you had on is probably along the side of the road somewhere between here and Lincoln." He smiles and I smile with him. I remember taking them off. The wind was whipping and musta whipped them out the window while we drove. But that was an hour ago. Now I look down the road, seeing if I can see them. I see somebody down there walking in the dirt and the shimmer from the heat. "I don't wanna go home without no panties," I says. "You worry too much," Snipes says. All the car doors are open and the wind goes through, drying the sweat off the seats. "I gotta know something," I says. "Whut?" "The man's supposed to ask the girl," I whisper. He don't speak. We been together since March. Now it's July. I wanna give him a chance to ask me. "You said I wouldn't get bigged the first time we did it," I says. "Was our first time your first time?" he says. "You gonna marry me or what?" I says. The words come out too loud. He don't speak. He cuts on the radio but it don't work when the car ain't running. He gets out, closing the back two doors, leaving mines open and getting back behind the wheel. "Sure I'm gonna marry you," he says at last. "You my treasure. You think I don't wanna marry my treasure?" "People are talking," I says. "They just jealous," he says and we both laugh. "Billy Beede got herself a good-looking man and they all jealous." When we quit laughing we sit there quiet. "You my treasure, girl," he says. "You my treasure, capital T, make no mistake." "I'm five months gone," I says. Too loud again. He wraps his fingers tight around the wheel. I want him to look at me but he don't. Someone comes up, stopping a foot or two from the car to stare at us openmouthed. It's Laz. He got his wool cap down around his ears and his plaid shirt buttoned to the chin. "You want yr ass kicked?" Snipes asks him. "Not today," Laz says. "You don't stop looking at me and my woman, I'ma kick yr black ass," Snipes says. Laz looks at the ground. "You don't get the hell outa here, I'ma kill you," Snipes says. "Being dead don't bother me none," Laz says. He got a bold voice but he ain't looking up from the ground. Snipes jumps out the car and they stand there toe to toe. Everything Snipes got is better than everything Laz got. "Go the hell home, Laz," I says and he turns and goes. Snipes throws a rock and Laz runs. "Goddamn boot-black-wool-hat-wearing-four-eyed nigger probably wanted to see us doing it," Snipes goes, getting back in the car and laughing and holding my hand. "Peeping and creeping boot-black-winter-hat nigger." "Laz is just Laz," I says. "His daddy runs the funeral home but Laz ain't never gonna be running shit," Snipes says, laughing hard and squeezing my hand to get me to laugh too and I laugh till his squeezing hurts and I make him let go. "Today's Wednesday, ain't it?" Snipes says. He looks down the road, seeing his upcoming appointments in his head. "I'm free towards the end of the week. Let's get married on Friday." "Really?" "Friday's the day," he says, taking out his billfold. He peeks the money part open with his pointer and thumb, then he feathers the bills, counting. His one eyebrow lifts up, surprised. "That's what you call significant," he says. "Significant?" "What year is it?" " 'Sixty-three." "And here I got sixty-three dollars in my billfold," he says smiling. He pinches the bills out, folding them single-handed. He reaches over to me, lifting my housedress away from my brassiere and tucking the sixty-three dollars down between my breasts. "Get yrself a wedding dress and some shoes and a one-way bus ticket." "I'ma go to Jackson's Formal." "Get something pretty. Come up to Texhoma tomorrow. We can do it Friday." "You gonna get down on yr knee and ask me?" "You come up tomorrow and I'll get down on my knee in front of my sister and her kids and ask you to marry me. Hell, I'll get down on both knees. Then we can do it Friday." "How bout today you meet Aunt June and Uncle Teddy?" I says. "Today I gotta go to Midland," he says. "It'll only take a minute." "I don't got a minute," he says. He looks at me. He got lips like pillows. "Have em come to Texhoma Friday. They can watch us get married. I'll meet em then." "When they come up you gotta ask me to marry you on yr knees in front of them too," I says. "They'd feel left out if they didn't see it since you'll be asking me in front of yr sister and her kids and yr mother and dad--" "My mother and dad won't be making it," Snipes says. "How come?" "They's passed," he says. He starts up the car, turning it around neatly and pulling it into the road, heading back towards Lincoln. On Friday my new name will be Mrs. Clifton Snipes. "I was ten when Willa Mae passed," I says. "Willa Mae who?" "Willa Mae Beede. My mother," I says. Snipes takes his hand off the wheel to scratch his crotch. His foot is light on the gas pedal. There's a story about my mother. All these months I been seeing Snipes, I didn't know whether or not he'd heard it. Now I can tell he has. Excerpted from Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
BILLY BEEDE "Where my panties at?" I asks him. |
Snipes don't say nothing. He don't like to talk when he's in the middle of it. |
"I think I lost my panties," I says but Snipes ain't hearing. He got his eyes closed, his mouth smiling, his face wet with sweat. In the middle of it, up there on top of me, going in and out. Not on top of me really, more like on top of the side of me cause he didn't want my baby-belly getting in his way. He didn't say so, he ain't said nothing bout the baby yet, but I seen him looking at my belly and I know he's thinking about it, somewhere in his mind. We're in the backseat of his Galaxie. A Ford. Bright lemon colored outside, inside the color of new butter. My head taps against the door handle as he goes at it. |
"Huh. Huh. Huh," Snipes goes. |
In a minute my head's gonna hurt. But it don't hurt yet. |
"Where-" I go but he draws his finger down over my lips, hushing them so I don't finish, then he rubs my titty, moving his hand in a quick circle like he's polishing it. I try scootching down along the seat, away from the door, but when I scootch, Snipes' going at it scootches me right back up against the door handle again. I wonder if my baby's sitting in me upside down and if Snipes' thing is hitting it on its head like the door handle is hitting me on mines. |
"Ow," I go. Cause now my head hurts. |
"Owww," Snipes go. Cause he's through. |
He lays there for a minute then pulls himself out of me and gets out the car. He closes up his pants while he looks down the road. Zipper then belt. In my head I can see all the little seeds he just sowed in me.All them little Snipeses running up inside me looking for somewheres to plant. But there's a baby up in me already, a Baby Snipes. Baby Snipes knocks down the Little Snipes Seeds as fast as they come up. |
"How you doing?" Snipes asks. |
"Mmokay." I turn from my side onto my back, raising up on both elbows. My housedress is all open and the baby makes a hump. Snipes turns to look at me, his gold-colored eyes staying on mines, seeing the hump without really seeing it. He ducks into the front seat, getting his Chesterfields out his shirt pocket, and standing there with his back to me, smoking in just his undershirt. |
"Penny for yr thoughts," I go but he don't turn around or say nothing. I sit up, buckling my bra and taking a look around for my panties, first in the front seat then running my hand between the backseat and the seat back, thinking my panties mighta got stuck in between but not finding nothing. Then I do feel a scrap of something and give it a yank. Big red shiny drawers. Not mines. Snipes turns around and sees me holding them. |
"My sister's," he says smiling and putting on his shirt. "I let her use my car sometimes." I stuff the drawers back where I found them, first leaving a little red tail sticking out, then stuffing them back in all the way. |
"I didn't know you had no sister," I says. "I don't know nothing about you." "Whatchu need to know?" he says. |
"What's her name?" "Who?" "Yr sister." "Alberta," he says. Then he turns away showing me the side of his face, shaved clean and right-angled as my elbow. He's smiling hard, but not at me. |
"Clifton, can I ask you something else?" "I'll get you some more panties, girl, don't worry," he says. |
An hour ago, when Snipes came to get me, I was doing Aunt June's hair. I heard his whistle. He weren't stopped at the pumps. He was stopped across the road, standing against his car looking cool, waiting for me to come outside but waiting cool, just in case I didn't show. I seen him and run across the road without even looking to see if cars was coming and he picked me up and swirled me around. Just like Harry Belafonte woulda. |
"You ain't been around in almost a month," I said, breathless from the swirling. |
"I been working, girl," he said. He got a custom-coffin business. He makes and sells handmade coffins in any shape you want with plush lining inside and everything. While we drove he showed me his sample book with three new photographs, proud, like folks show pictures of they children. A oak Cadillac, a guitar of cherry wood, and a pharaoh-style one too, all big enough to get buried inside, the new ones not painted yet so folks can pick out they own colors. |
"People been talking," I said. |
"What they saying?" "Stuff," I said. "They saying stuff." We kissed as we drove down the road and then I started laughing cause he was tickling me and getting me undressed and showing me his sample book and driving all at the same time. His left hand on the wheel, his right hand between my legs. Then we pulled off the road. Then we did it. Now we done. |
"I'll get you a whole damn carload full of panties, girl," he says. "Them panties you had on is probably along the side of the road somewhere between here and Lincoln." He smiles and I smile with him. I remember taking them off. The wind was whipping and musta whipped them out the window while we drove. But that was an hour ago. |
Now I look down the road, seeing if I can see them. I see somebody down there walking in the dirt and the shimmer from the heat. |
"I don't wanna go home without no panties," I says. |
"You worry too much," Snipes says. |
All the car doors are open and the wind goes through, drying the sweat off the seats. |
"I gotta know something," I says. |
"Whut?" "The man's supposed to ask the girl," I whisper. |
He don't speak. |
We been together since March. Now it's July. I wanna give him a chance to ask me. |
"You said I wouldn't get bigged the first time we did it," I says. |
"Was our first time your first time?" he says. |
"You gonna marry me or what?" I says. The words come out too loud. |
He don't speak. He cuts on the radio but it don't work when the car ain't running. He gets out, closing the back two doors, leaving mines open and getting back behind the wheel. |
"Sure I'm gonna marry you," he says at last. "You my treasure. You think I don't wanna marry my treasure?" "People are talking," I says. |
"They just jealous," he says and we both laugh. "Billy Beede got herself a good-looking man and they all jealous." When we quit laughing we sit there quiet. |
"You my treasure, girl," he says. "You my treasure, capital T, make no mistake." "I'm five months gone," I says. Too loud again. |
He wraps his fingers tight around the wheel. I want him to look at me but he don't. |
Someone comes up, stopping a foot or two from the car to stare at us openmouthed. It's Laz. He got his wool cap down around his ears and his plaid shirt buttoned to the chin. |
"You want yr ass kicked?" Snipes asks him. |
"Not today," Laz says. |
"You don't stop looking at me and my woman, I'ma kick yr black ass," Snipes says. |
Laz looks at the ground. |
"You don't get the hell outa here, I'ma kill you," Snipes says. |
"Being dead don't bother me none," Laz says. He got a bold voice but he ain't looking up from the ground. |
Snipes jumps out the car and they stand there toe to toe. Everything Snipes got is better than everything Laz got. |
"Go the hell home, Laz," I says and he turns and goes. Snipes throws a rock and Laz runs. |
"Goddamn boot-black-wool-hat-wearing-four-eyed nigger probably wanted to see us doing it," Snipes goes, getting back in the car and laughing and holding my hand. "Peeping and creeping boot-black-winter-hat nigger." "Laz is just Laz," I says. |
"His daddy runs the funeral home but Laz ain't never gonna be running shit," Snipes says, laughing hard and squeezing my hand to get me to laugh too and I laugh till his squeezing hurts and I make him let go. |
"Today's Wednesday, ain't it?" Snipes says. He looks down the road, seeing his upcoming appointments in his head. "I'm free towards the end of the week. Let's get married on Friday." "Really?" "Friday's the day," he says, taking out his billfold. He peeks the money part open with his pointer and thumb, then he feathers the bills, counting. His one eyebrow lifts up, surprised. |
"That's what you call significant," he says. |
"Significant?" "What year is it?" " 'Sixty-three." "And here I got sixty-three dollars in my billfold," he says smiling. |
He pinches the bills out, folding them single-handed. He reaches over to me, lifting my housedress away from my brassiere and tucking the sixty-three dollars down between my breasts. |
"Get yrself a wedding dress and some shoes and a one-way bus ticket." "I'ma go to Jackson's Formal." "Get something pretty. Come up to Texhoma tomorrow. We can do it Friday." "You gonna get down on yr knee and ask me?" "You come up tomorrow and I'll get down on my knee in front of my sister and her kids and ask you to marry me. Hell, I'll get down on both knees. Then we can do it Friday." "How bout today you meet Aunt June and Uncle Teddy?" I says. |
"Today I gotta go to Midland," he says. |
"It'll only take a minute." "I don't got a minute," he says. He looks at me. He got lips like pillows. "Have em come to Texhoma Friday. They can watch us get married. I'll meet em then." "When they come up you gotta ask me to marry you on yr knees in front of them too," I says. "They'd feel left out if they didn't see it since you'll be asking me in front of yr sister and her kids and yr mother and dad-" "My mother and dad won't be making it," Snipes says. |
"How come?" "They's passed," he says. He starts up the car, turning it around neatly and pulling it into the road, heading back towards Lincoln. On Friday my new name will be Mrs. Clifton Snipes. |
"I was ten when Willa Mae passed," I says. |
"Willa Mae who?" "Willa Mae Beede. My mother," I says. |
Snipes takes his hand off the wheel to scratch his crotch. His foot is light on the gas pedal. There's a story about my mother. All these months I been seeing Snipes, I didn't know whether or not he'd heard it. Now I can tell he has. |
From the Hardcover edition. |