Playing My Mother's Blues - Softcover

Valerie Wilson Wesley

3.97

323 ratings by Goodreads

9780061015533: Playing My Mother's Blues

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061015539 ISBN 13: 9780061015533

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2007

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Dani Carter was seven years old—her sister, Rose, seventeen—when their beautiful, impetuous mother, Maria, walked out of their lives, abandoning her husband and family for a love affair that would end tragically mere months later. Now, after decades, Dani's own loveless marriage is faltering—propelling her into the arms of another and inspiring troubling thoughts of escape from her husband and beloved young son.

Dani fears the sins of the mother have been visited upon the daughter. And, unlike Rose, who never speaks of their lost parent, Dani can't help but wonder who Maria really was. It's a puzzle that may soon be solved because, in a time of emotional and physical chaos, Maria, calling herself Mariah, is about to re-enter her daughters' worlds—bearing secrets and bitter truths . . . and, perhaps, long-awaited answers.

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About the Author:

Valerie Wilson Wesley is the author of the novels Always True to You in My Fashion and Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do, winner of the 2000 Best Fiction Award of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, as well as the nationally bestselling Tamara Hayle mystery series. A contributing editor at Essence magazine, her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Ms. and the New York Times. She lives in New Jersey.

From School Library Journal:

Adult/High School-Wesley is in high form in this contemporary story about mother-daughter relationships in an African-American family. When she was in her 30s, Mariah had an affair that led to her leaving her husband and two daughters. Several months later, she shot her lover and spent time in prison for his murder. Now Rose and Dani are grown, and she has just read of her ex-husband's death. Desperate to make peace with her children after all these years, she makes plans to attend the funeral. Meanwhile, her daughters have spent their lives trying to come to terms with their mother's desertion. The choices that they have made in their relationships reflect both the influence of their Aunt Lucille, who raised them, and the lingering memories of Mariah. When the three women meet again, long-buried issues are brought to the surface and change each of their lives in ways they could not have anticipated. Told from the perspectives of Mariah, Rose, Dani, and Lucille, the story is rich and compelling, and much more complex than it appears on the surface. Interwoven into the tale are themes of racial relationships and the drug culture of the '60s and '70s. The characters are totally believable in their various combinations of grace and flaws. Readers will identify with the struggles of these women to define themselves, rather than letting their circumstances define them.-Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Library System, VA
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