Somebody Else's Mama (Harvest Book) - Softcover

Haynes, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0156004089 ISBN 13: 9780156004084

Publisher: Mariner Books, 1996

Synopsis

As she struggles to move from antagonism to common ground with Miss Xenobia Kezee, her sick, elderly, cantankerous mother-in-law, Paula Johnson confronts her own mother’s death and her husband’s detachment from the emotional life of his family.

About this title

About the Author:

David Haynes is an author.  He received his B.A. in literature from Macalester College, Minnesota in 1977, his. M.A. from Hamline University, Minnesota in 1989. He taught fifth and sixth grades for fifteen years and has served as teacher in residence at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. He served on the leadership team at the experimental Saturn School of Tomorrow. His book Right by My Side was a winner in the 1992 Minnesota Voices Project and was selected by the American Library Association as one of 1994's best books for young adults. Two of Haynes's stories have been recorded for the National Public Radio series "Selected Shorts." In 1996 Haynes was named by Granta magazine as one of the best young American novelists. 

From Booklist:

Haynes lovingly describes a world both insular and nurturing, but one that appears to be vanishing: middle-class life in a small, exclusively African American Missouri town. Paula and Al Johnson are living the American dream. Al is a successful small-town newspaper publisher about to launch a foray into local politics, and Paula is a high-school teacher. Their adolescent twin sons, Tim and Tom, though studies in contrast, are good kids with bright futures. Into this stable life comes Miss Kezee, Al's aging mother, who no longer seems to be able to take care of herself, but whom Paula adamantly resists placing in a nursing home. Miss Kezee is angry at being removed from her home in St. Paul, Minnesota, distrustful of Paula, and miserable to the twins. Miss Kezee hates the small town and the house in which Al and Paula live; it was where she lived with her much-hated first husband, Al's father. As each major character narrates the story in alternating segments, the reader sees the family take its first steps toward understanding and acceptance. Recommended for most fiction collections. George Needham

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0156004089
• ISBN 13: 9780156004084
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 360