I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots

Marietta Cook leaves South Carolina's Low Country to seek a new life in Charleston, only to become pregnant with twin boys whom she struggles to support as a domestic amid the turmoil of the civil rights movement.

Straight (a story collection, Aquaboogie, 1990) here offers a first novel about a black woman and her two professional football- playing sons--in a debut notable especially for its evocation of place and its sure-handed use of patois. Marietta Cook, in 1959, is growing up in the low country of South Carolina, and Straight precisely textures the southern rural detail, ranging from shrimping and fishing in the swamp with a torn and mended net to gathering hanging moss. When Marietta's mother dies, she leaves Aint Sister (the patois includes syntactical and spelling variations as well as quirky naming--Tiny Momma, Baby Poppa, etc.) and goes to Charleston to look for her uncle. Instead, she finds Sinbad (one of those ``Here and gone people'') and eventually returns home pregnant with twin boys. Marietta works- -doing heavy wash, chopping with her hoe--and pays attention to the young civil rights movement on TV until Aint Sister dies, whereupon she returns to Charleston with her two football geniuses and works as a domestic. She learns about football as well as civil rights, and her boys finally get drafted by the Rams. The scene shifts to a black community in southern California as the boys, Calvin and Nate, try to make the cut. Marietta becomes a veritable earth- mother--while Nate shoots up steroids--and, though she's out of her element in dealing with microwaves, structured playtime, and financial consultants, she not only survives but prospers. By story's end, she'll feel at home, upbeat, and at relative peace with the world. A little contrived or sentimental in patches, but affectionately evoking the rhythms and contours of two particular places. An impressive first--from a writer to watch. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

YA-- Large, silent, 14-year-old, blue - black Marietta Cook leaves tiny Gullah-speaking Pine Gardens, South Carolina to seek her uncle and her fortune in Charleston when her mother dies. Learning the rhythms of the city, working for Frank in the fish market, going home to bear twins, working on a rice plantation, returning to Charleston and raising her boys--her life unfolds. Students can experience vicariously the community, family, and friendships that form the pulse of this woman's life from 1959 to her settling into her role as grandmother, California home owner, and perhaps, future bride in 1983. Time, place, and character are all well developed. A solid recommendation for students seeking a good story and a strong female protagonist as well as for those who need a book on black history.
- Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Elegantly constructed and eloquently written, Straight's ( Aquaboogie ) second book is a coming-of-age novel of grand proportions. The story she tells is as monumental as its main character. In 1959, 13-year-old Marietta Cook lives with her ailing mother in the tiny, Gullah-speaking village of Pine Gardens, S.C. They eke out a precarious existence by gardening, fishing and selling handwoven baskets by the roadside. Marietta, who is descended on her dead father's side from a slave the townspeople remember as "Africa woman," is far darker-skinned than anyone else in the community, and she is enormously tall. This--and her taciturn nature in a society where women fill their days with constant talk--makes her an outsider who is never fully accepted, not even by her family. When her mother dies, Marietta leaves Pine Gardens for Charleston ? ck. till now she's said to have been in Pine Gardens.// ok and participates briefly in the civil rights movement, an experience that resonates for her later, when she finds herself doing day work in the homes of wealthy white women. When she returns home, pregnant, a gruff yet loving aunt helps her to give birth to twin boys and becomes an uneasy role model. The novel follows the small family to the twins' adulthood, as they struggle to become professional football players. Throughout, Marietta is an impassive yet transfixing character who bears her troubles stoically, complex though they often are. Along with Straight's fluid prose and so as not to virtually repeat 'eloquently written' above accomplished use of dialogue, this powerful book is remarkable for the dignity and integrity with which she infuses her characters and their lives. BOMC selection; author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a daring and successful experiment, Straight depends almost exclusively on Gullah dialect to capture the brutishness of Marietta Cook's existence. Marietta survives poverty and single motherhood in South Carolina only to end up an outsider in gaudy L.A. Unfortunately, the deeper question of how black women define themselves when surrounded by racial prejudice and haunted by slavery falls by the wayside when Marietta moves to California. As the focus shifts to her twin sons, stand-out NFL players, the plot thins and becomes as predictable as a movie. Before this novel fittingly is transformed into a Hollywood blockbuster along the lines of The Color Purple , it undoubtedly will gather positive reviews and be in demand. It should be included in new fiction stacks and in comprehensive collections of African American, Southern, and feminist literature.
-Rita Ciresi, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.