The Darkest Child - Hardcover

Phillips, Delores

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1569473455 ISBN 13: 9781569473450

Publisher: Soho Press Inc, 2004

Synopsis

Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Her ten children are mostly light, too. Everyone in the small Georgia town in which she lives knows that they have different fathers. She favors her light children, but it is Tangy Mae, the darkest of them all, who is the brightest and the only one desperate to get an education. Even in rural Pakersfield they have heard of the Supreme Court's recent ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, though they are in no hurry to comply with it.
Rozelle wants thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae to take over her jobs: days, doing house cleaning for whites; nights, servicing men, white and black, at the "Farmhouse." And Rozelle is not a woman whose commands can lightly be ignored. She is a creature of moods, possessive of all her children, desperate for their love, demanding of utter loyalty and obedience, harshly repressive of any signs of independence. They are the only thing in her life that she can control.
The Darkest Child shows us a world misshapen by years of oppression in which family is powerful yet offers little kindness or comfort. It shows us a world in which attitudes of prejudice have been adopted by its victim, and the resulting struggle of those who are darker complected is a struggle not only against outsiders, but against the closest of kin.

About this title

Review

‘Filled with grand plot events and clearly identifiable villains and victims . . . lush with detail and captivating.’ Washington Post Book World -- Washington Post

Synopsis

Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Yet everyone in her small Georgia town knows she's not. Rozelle's ten children, by ten different fathers, are mostly light, too. They sleep on the floor in her drafty, rickety three-room shack and live in fear of her moods and temper. But they are all vital to her. They occupy the only world she rules and controls. They multiply her power in an otherwise cruel and uncaring universe. Rozelle favours her light-skinned kids, but insists that they all love and obey her unquestioningly. Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae is her brightest but darkest-skinned child. Tangy desperately wants to continue with her education. Shockingly, the highest court in the land has just ruled that Negroes may go to school with whites. Her mother, however, has other plans. Rozelle wants her daughter to work, cleaning houses for whites, like she does, and to accompany her to the "Farmhouse", where Rozelle earns extra money bedding men. Tangy Mae, she's decided, is of age.

Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Press Inc
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1569473455
• ISBN 13: 9781569473450
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 388