The Mothers

The Mothers

Adult Fiction
"...All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if
we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have
noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and
passed around before its season, a secret that began the spring Nadia
Turner got knocked up by the preacher's son and went to the abortion
clinic downtown to take care of it."
When I read The Vanishing Half (Recall the twin sisters who
ended up living it totally different worlds when one chose to pass as
white?) I was totally impressed with Brit Bennett's ability to blend
racial issues with people's everyday hope and fear based decisions and
their repercussions. When I learned that she had written an earlier
book I was over the moon. I went about obtaining it through the new
normal pandemic channels. It was well worth the wait.
We first meet Nadia in the summer after her high school
graduation, shortly after her mother's unexpected suicide. She's
desperate to go off to college and make a fresh start, away from the
community which will always see her in light of the tragedy. She's
sleeping with the minister's son. She isn't thinking on what could go
wrong. When she discovers that she's pregnant abortion seems like the
only viable option.
Minister's son Luke was a football star in college until
sidelined by an injury. He walks with a limp. When we meet him he's
adrift, waiting tables at a dive and clueless about what he wants to
do with his life.
Nadia's classmate, Aubrey, had fled from her criminally
negligent mother and abusive stepfather to live with older sister, Mo,
and Mo's girlfriend, Kacey.
"...She was saved at sixteen, and since then she'd attended
church services each week and volunteered for the children's ministry,
the homeless ministry, the bereavement committee. Babies, bums,
grief..."
The Mothers follows Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey for that summer and
the subsequent decades during which their lives remain often awkwardly
and sometimes painfully interconnected. It's a journey you'll want to
make.
Oh, yeah, you're probably wondering why this book is called The
Mothers...
...read it and find out.
On a purrrsonal note, this has been a really big week for me.
1) My baby, Adam, is 24 today. Happy Birthday wishes to my wonderful
son! He and his fiancée stopped over for a lovely visit Tuesday
night. That made my month.
2) My semester started Monday. So far it's review. I'm mostly
excited but a little nervous.
3) Tobago had her annual checkup. She is the feline picture of health.
4) The furnace stopped working Monday night. The trailer was
freezing. Luckily a guy came out and fixed it. We don't have to
replace it. Yet.
5) My program had a zoom picture taken of current students for
prospective ones. I zoom saw some friends I really have been missing.
(Jules).
The hoomans will all get vaccinations. Ha ha! And it was great
seeing Adam and Asia. (Tobago)
Great big shout outs go out to Adam and Asia, the furnace repair guy
and all his coworkers doing their very essential work, the Veazie Vet
crew, and all students and professors starting a new semester.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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