Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Reading Terry McMillan’s Getting to Happy was like having a conversation with old friends that haven’t been heard from in a while. Robin, Savannah, Gloria and Bernadine have matured, but remain the lovable women that America fell in love with in 1992’s Waiting to Exhale.

McMillan continues to create well-rounded characters that are not easily defined or confined to one category. The reader is allowed learn what the ladies have been doing since the early 90s. The happily ever after ending that we expected to find, is not there, but instead there are four very distinct stories about women in middle of their lives and the struggles that they are currently fighting. Drug abuse, parenting, lost love, financial woes and death are all being handled by this remarkable group of women.

While this is not McMillan’s greatest accomplish, it is worthy of the praises that will bestowed on it. She manages to bring the reader up to speed without overstating or dwelling on past events. The characters lives continue to unfold throughout Getting to Happy and allow the reader to take part in the development of these women.

Getting to Happy is a must read for fans of Waiting to Exhale and Baby-boomers everywhere. It is rare that we see an African American novel that focuses on this oft-forgotten segment of the population. Vivacious, energetic, mature women, teach us that 50 does not signal the end, but can be used as a new beginning to something new and exciting.





View all my reviews

Glorious by Bernice McFadden

by Gypsy Culp Houston

Bernice McFadden’s Glorious grants 21st century readers entry into the early 20th century, the whirlwind of the Harlem Renaissance, the Back to Africa and the Civil Rights movements. At the center of this story is Easter Bartlett, a young Black from a small town in Georgia. The reader witnesses her in a myriad of circumstances, all seemingly ending in unhappiness and loneliness.
Upon loosing her mother, gaining a stepmother and hearing hurtful words from her father, Easter decides to leave Waycross Georgia and her mute sister, Rlizbeth, behind. What follows is the nomadic life of someone looking for a place to call home. As the story unfolds, Easter goes through several transitions. She morphs from cook to carnie, to school teacher to wash girl and more. Though scenarios and scenery change, the one thing that remains constant in Easter’s life is her love for words and writing.

It is Easter’s writing that provides her with the strength to carry on during the difficult times of her life. During her time in Harlem, her writing allows her to move in interesting circles and to make important literary connections with other writers of her time. The Harlem Renaissance is in full swing and Negrophile benefactors are willing to pay money so that talented Negros can devote all of their time and energy to their craft. Meredith Tomas, volunteers to fill the role of benefactor for Easter. This leads Easter to entering a contest that will change her life forever.
Easter’s travels take her from Waycross to New York City with a few stops in between, and finally ending back in Waycross. During her travels she falls in love, takes a lover and gets married, not necessarily in that order. Every moment is an opportunity for self discovery and reinvention. Letting no dust settle on her feet, Easter moves seamlessly from one place to the next, basically from one life to the next.

While a quick read, Glorious allows the audience a connection with key moments in African American history. McFadden’s writing is such that the underlying theme of desperation and despair become almost human. Racism is ever-present in the novel. There always seems to be an unspoken threat to the African American characters, ‘You better watch your step, Darky.’ How saddening that even in progress there is the fear of not belonging or being welcome.
Though, it is a novel primarily about African American life and culture, all audiences will find a piece of themselves in Glorious. Whether it’s the tenacity of youth, the perils of unrequited love or the loss of love ones, everyone will find something with which to identify. Beautifully written, Glorious, is a thought provoking novel that is sure to leave readers in deep contemplation and reflection.

Till You Hear from Me: A Novel by Pearl Cleage---loved it!!

Till You Hear from Me: A Novel by Pearl Cleage

Reviewed by Gypsy Culp Houston

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay, hands down, Pearl Cleage is my favorite author of the last few years. I have yet to read anything of hers that wasn’t topnotch. She weaves a story like no one else. I first came to love her writing with What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day and have read and loved every novel she has written since then. Till You Hear from Me is no different.

The protagonist, Ida B., is a strong-willed daddy’s girl that has had a falling out with her Civil Rights legend father, the fictitious Reverend Horace A. Dunbar, due to his lack of support for Barack Obama. Cleage does an outstanding job of creating a story around the monumental 2008 election and some of the lesser known opinions and fears of older African American leaders and the community as a whole. She gives us a peek into discussions that continue to go on at several Black barber shops, kitchen tables and churches around the country. Will there be a passing of the torch or will the torch be extinguished due to lack of trust, misunderstanding and hurt feelings?

As with her previous novels, the characters are so real that you feel like know them. By using supporting characters and the community from her earlier works, Cleage gives credibility to the new characters and issues they face. She does such a good job of describing the community of West End, that it is almost a character in and of itself. While the community doesn’t serve as a focal point of this novel, the ideologies and way of life are very much on display. Who wouldn't want to live in West End? The people are very caring and look out for one another. Because of its history of activism, racial success and opportunity, Atlanta, and more specifically, the fictitious West End, is a fantastic setting for this story about the post- Obama ‘freedom high’ and the subsequent prospects, confusion and challenges that lie ahead.

Pearl Cleage continues to challenge social mores and bring attention to important issues through her writing. While this book allows you to feel socially conscious, it also highlights relationships. The love between a father and child, a leader and those that are led and the love of country are all explored in this novel. Everything is intertwined to deliver a thought provoking read. Till You Here from Me will leave you feeling uplifted, refreshed and that anything is possible.

View all my reviews >>

If You Were My Man by Francis Ray

Review by Gypsy Culp Houston---Quick Read


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
If I Were Your Man is the story of Nathalyia Fontaine and Rafael Dunlap finding love in each others arms. In this page turner, Francis Ray, true to form, incorporates a hint of suspense and uneasiness to the romance. In If I Were Your Man, the main characters are drawn to each other despite very different backgrounds. What starts as an affair quickly develops into something much more. The novel asks the question, “Should we be ruled by fear or love?"

As with similar romance novels, secondary characters lack dimension, there is not a substantial back-story, and the plot is somewhat predictable. However, the story unfolds nicely and at an acceptable pace. Ray is an expert at making reader feel at home and comfortable inside the story. The reader will at times identify with each main character and will be drawn to the lushness of the situations described. If I Were Your Man is a quick read and great for a lazy Saturday afternoon. Francis Ray continues to be a go to author for African American Romance. Romance enthusiasts and novice alike will enjoy this book.

View all my reviews >>

Gloryland by Shelton Johnson, 2009

Reviewed by Patricia Poland

Elijah Yancey was a Buffalo soldier in the U. S. Cavalry from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Born black in Spartanburg, South Carolina, his coming of age reveals his desire to buck the system and his first attempts to try to break the color barrier. Fearing for his life, his parents ask him to leave and never come back.

He walks and walks and eventually ends up in Nebraska and signs up with the Calvary.

Therein begins a beautifully poetic book, written like a memoir, of Elijah and his ‘coming-to-grips’ with life, the

U. S. Army, God, and eventually love. (Though we must accept that Elijah finds earthly love because he tells us this near the end of the book, it is a spiritual and inner love that is the most apparent for the reader.)

As the years of soldiering give way, so does the anger at how his race has been treated.

It grows into something else - a deep relationship with his ancestors (respect really) and an even deeper understanding of God from the canyons, meadows, stars and even grizzly bears (and mules) of Yosemite National Park.

It is his short time at Yosemite that takes hold of him forever. It is that time and the memories that it creates that help fill the hole of his missing home and family. Elijah’s introspection is surprisingly simple and yet deep, as seen here in his description of his awe at God’s land, from page 198:

In general, we didn’t talk much on patrols, cause the mountains and valleys and meadow kept shutting us up. It seemed like God was usually talking in a big voice here and over there and round the bend yonder, and when God’s talking, you shut up.

Quotations at the beginning of each chapter from the “Cavalry Tactics” manual create a nice balance with the fine prose.

Only someone who has lived and worked at this National Park could portray it in such a personal and beautiful way and Johnson is that person, being a ranger at Yosemite. Johnson also draws from his own family’s history, an ancestor who was a Buffalo Soldier.

Gloryland will give you a peek into the painful time of southern African-Americans from the 1870s and on into the early struggles of desegregation within the U. S. Army. You will be bound to a man who eventually finds himself in a wonder-filled place and learns who he really is. It will leave you yearning for you own Yosemite.

Going Down South by Bonnie J. Glover

Review by Gypsy Culp Houston--LOVED IT!!

Going Down South: A Novel by Bonnie Glover


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Going Down South is the story of three generations of women with three generations worth of secrets. Birdie the matriarch of the family is a blue-black woman with a questionable background. Birdie’s daughter Daisy, left Alabama at an early age never to return again, or so she thought. Olivia Jean, Daisy’s daughter changed that with the realization that she is pregnant at 15. Daisy decides that she and her husband, Turk will take Olivia Jean to live with Birdie, whom Olivia Jean has never met. Once they reach Alabama, the plan changes. Secrets are revealed, feelings explained and relationships recovered.

Bonnie J. Glover does an excellent job revealing the personality and history behind each of the three women. While men are very much present in this novel, the role they play is secondary at best. Men are discussed only in relation to one of the three lead characters. While Glover does not talk ad nauseum about the time period in which she is writing, she does a good job of conveying general feelings and social mores of the time.

Going Down South will leave you feeling hopeful. If these three Black Alabama women could overcome all that had to and still find some semblance of peace, then what’s stopping the next woman from doing it. Nothing.

View all my reviews >>