With Third Girl from the Left, Southgate brings her acute vision and emotional scope to a larger canvas. This enormously entertaining yet serious n...
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Aug 18, 2011
Andaye
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This book spans 3 generations of women and the events in their lives that make them who they are. It's a story that many will probably be able to commiserate with. The writing is so vivid that the characters seem to be playing out the entire book right in front of you.
It focuses on the idea of family and what that means as well as what love means and whom you love. What it means to be a woman, what it means to own your sensuality, to be afraid of it. It encompasses all the emotions t More...
It focuses on the idea of family and what that means as well as what love means and whom you love. What it means to be a woman, what it means to own your sensuality, to be afraid of it. It encompasses all the emotions t More...
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Oct 24, 2011
Janie
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Martha Southgate did a rave for The Barbarian Nurseries, so I thought I'd check her out. I was soon wrapped up in a beautifully rendered almost too real story of African American women living and moving their lives from Tulsa to LA to NYC... I laughed some, felt stirred up a lot, and came close to crying. Now, I'm going to research Southgate and see what else she's written. This one was a true discovery.
I wish i'd written this review:
Third Girl From The Left will be justifi More...
I wish i'd written this review:
Third Girl From The Left will be justifi More...
Aug 18, 2011
Melissa
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A surprisingly great book--I picked up at the bargain section of Half-Price books. I was intrigued by the description--all about a woman who was an extra in some of the blaxplotation films of the 70s, her mother who was involved in the Tulsa Race Riot and her daughter who became a filmmaker. Hard to put down and a great story about the power of family and the movies.
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Aug 18, 2011
CMolieri
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I've never read any of Southgate's work but this was a powerful story that is interwoven through three generations of women and covers race, sexuality, class, and the broken heart.
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Aug 18, 2011
Lynecia
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Beautifully written. Moving, intelligent and soulful. A portrait of the relationship between mothers and daughters, race, class, family and learning to love oneself.
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Aug 18, 2011
Holly
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Third Girl From the Left follows three generations of African-American women; Angie, her mother Mildred, and Angie's daughter Tamara.
The protagonist, Angie, feels suffocated in her small Tulsa town and runs away to Los Angeles to become an actress. She struggles to find her way in a new and exotic town that doesn't live up to her child-hood fantasies of fame and fortune. Mildred grew up in a more conservative era, which provides for an often tumultuous relationship with her daught More...
The protagonist, Angie, feels suffocated in her small Tulsa town and runs away to Los Angeles to become an actress. She struggles to find her way in a new and exotic town that doesn't live up to her child-hood fantasies of fame and fortune. Mildred grew up in a more conservative era, which provides for an often tumultuous relationship with her daught More...
Aug 18, 2011
Christina
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This book seems to be highly underrated. I had never heard of the author before I read this book, and now I would love to read more of her work. This book was a great wholesome read. The characters were realistic and well developed, along with the plot of the story was easy to follow and understand. After the first 30 pages, the story thickens, and it is a page turner from there. This book dealt with a number of issues that came out of the 60's and 70's era. Issues such as racism, blaxploitation
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Aug 18, 2011
Melisa
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I read this book while listening to the dirtbomb's dangerous magical noise, which was a transporting experience. I dug this book alot. Even though there are some weaknesses, the strengths were enough to win me over. Southgate has an ability to capture some of the essential moments in black women's lives and make them feel totally real. This capacity alone took the book very far. I also think her other great strength was her accurate descriptions of sex and desire. When she would describe her cha
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Aug 18, 2011
Karen
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The interlocking stories of Tulsa native Angela, her mother Mildred, and her daughter Tamara illustrate how women's experience in the U.S. was limited, even given the rise of feminist and Black nationalist consciousness and the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. The novel tells each woman's story in separate sections, which illustrates how the women remain in their own worlds, estranged from the others. Angela has the most openly revolutionary story--she rebels against her parents' constr
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Aug 18, 2011
Mistinguette
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Martha Southgate & I went to grade school together, and I find her fiction (both Third Girl and Fall of Rome) to reflect an experience of gender, race and class that is particular to our generation -- too young to be Boomers; grounded in a lived rather than intellectual feminism; the historically conscious fruit of generations of liberation struggle that often falls from not quite far enough from the tree that bore it, half-ripened and not altogether sweet.
The voices in Third Girl More...
The voices in Third Girl More...
Aug 18, 2011
Chrisiant
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This is another I culled from the lists for "National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month". A good chunk of it is set during the era of blaxploitation movies. I had no idea there was such a thing, or that a few movies I had heard of (but not seen) were part of that genre. Again, reading this book, I experienced references to an assumed cultural background that I don't have. The littlest mentions of things dropped as background dressing (the hair at
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Dec 09, 2011
Revae
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Third Girl from the Left follows three generations of Edwards women, and how movies impacted their life. Mildred, the grandmother, survives the Tulsa Race Riots only to live a normal Tulsa lifestyle in spite of her dreams. Angela, the mother, rebels against a traditional tulsa lifestyle and flees to LA to be in the movies never to look back. Her dream is deferred indefinitely when she has Tamara. Tamara fights for to fulfill her dream to direct, but when she's discouraged by reality, meeting her
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Aug 18, 2011
Continualknowledge
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This book was so out of the ordinary that I'm not even sure what to say about it. Should you read it, I definitely think it's worth your time to pick it up and make it through the book. It's about history, family, relationships, identity, being true to yourself and finding your dreams all rolled up into one. It makes you question the importance of knowing yourself and where you come from. It makes you pay attention to your family roots and how learning about them means you learn about yourse
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Aug 18, 2011
Chanel
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Third Girl From The Left would make a pretty good movie. The author of this book Martha Southgate does a really good job at taken an intense situation and exploding it. At that point it gives the reader a good visual of not only whats happening but the visual of it to. This novel explores three generations of movie-loving women: Tamara, a struggling young filmmaker; Her mother Angela, a former Playboy Bunny and blaxploitation-film extra; and last but not least Angela's mother, Mildred a suvivor
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Aug 18, 2011
Definitely one of the "Can't tell a book by it's cover" items. Sexy cover, but the book goes deeply into three generations of women in one family - beginning at the Tulsa, Oklahoma race riots of 1921, through the tumultuous 1960's and ending with the granddaughter trying to connect and make sense of her life in the 90s. Loved it!
Aug 18, 2011
Mely
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-The ending made me cry.
-Three generations of African-American women and their relationships to Hollywood movies. We start, more or less, with Angela, in the middle, "the third girl from the left," tiny bit parts in blaxploitation flicks before she gives up; her mother Mildred had loved movies, and loved knowing how things worked when she was little, fascinated by machinery and projectors before gender and race expectations made her give them up; and Tamara, Angela's daughter, wants More...
-Three generations of African-American women and their relationships to Hollywood movies. We start, more or less, with Angela, in the middle, "the third girl from the left," tiny bit parts in blaxploitation flicks before she gives up; her mother Mildred had loved movies, and loved knowing how things worked when she was little, fascinated by machinery and projectors before gender and race expectations made her give them up; and Tamara, Angela's daughter, wants More...
Jan 08, 2012
Courtney
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I forget how I came across this book, but the part I liked best was the little girl watching the Academy Awards with her mom and her mom's girlfriend.
Aug 18, 2011
Alison
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Oct 17, 2011
Katrina
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This was an excellent book! I really enjoyed the way the story was told through all three generations of the women in the family and how their stories of heartache,love and pain all entwined.
Aug 18, 2011
Samira
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A book that spans three generations of women all connected by their love of movies. It richly represents each woman's struggle against the constraints of gender, race & sexual taboo to define themselves & create art. Southgate's critique of the rampant exploitation of black women's labor & bodies in the 1970s blaxploitation era is unrelenting, yet the power of her novel rests in its tender portrait of three black women's yearning for personal definition and creative freedom. Q
Nov 07, 2011
Deborah
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An unusual vehicle to carry this story - Blaxploitation films. A unique "outsider" voice throughout. I have become a fan of Marth Southgate!
Aug 18, 2011
Alicia
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What tries to be a racy and raunchy story of growing up as a wanna-be it girl turns out to be a touching generational story of African American women trying to make it against the odds.
And there we are. My mother is beautiful and my grandmother is beautiful and I'm beautiful. You see that beauty as it finally even though no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America, not a hoochie, not a ho, not a mammy, not a dyke, not a cliche, just a woman. a lot of women.
And there we are. My mother is beautiful and my grandmother is beautiful and I'm beautiful. You see that beauty as it finally even though no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America, not a hoochie, not a ho, not a mammy, not a dyke, not a cliche, just a woman. a lot of women.
Aug 18, 2011
This is my second time reading this book and I will admit the first I read this book I really didn't appreciate it. I don't know if it's because I'm older or what but I really like this book it struck something in me. It tells the story of three generations of women all looking for something. Each finding what they need in different decades of life all through the same vessel (movies). I don't want to give away the entire book I will just say this is a excellent read.
Aug 18, 2011
Reads4Pleasure
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It really doesn't get any better than Martha Southgate. I loved The Fall of Rome & can't even come up with a word to describe how much more I love Third Girl from the Left!
Aug 18, 2011
Deb
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This is a great book! It earns an exclamation point!
A book about racism in America, the pain and power in being part of a family, how family is defined, and the 70's blaxploitation film scene in L.A.
This book is shelved in Af-Am fiction, but should also be in lesbian fiction.
A book about racism in America, the pain and power in being part of a family, how family is defined, and the 70's blaxploitation film scene in L.A.
This book is shelved in Af-Am fiction, but should also be in lesbian fiction.
Aug 18, 2011
Janee
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This book was somewhat disappointing, in that the familial connection between the three female characters is not depicted well so their personal and interpersonal conflicts do not resonate with the reader as much as they should.
Aug 18, 2011
Paulina
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This was a great read; I loved every page. It narrates three interlocking stories and emphasizes the importance of family and of the skills that are silently passed down from one generation to another.
Aug 18, 2011
Shani
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I enjoyed the book. It's a quick read and it revolves around a mother, daughter, and grandmother. Has a touch of romance, hollywood, and glimpse of black culture in setting of Tulsa, Oklahoma riots.
