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97th out of 680 books
—
2,758 voters
Mama Day
On the island of Willow Springs, off the Georgia coast, the powers of healer Mama Day are tested by her great niece, Cocoa, a stubbornly emancipated woman endangered by the island's darker forces.
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
April 23rd 1989
by Vintage
(first published 1988)
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Wow. I could not put this book down -- started out a bit piecy and confusing, but as the plot progressed I found myself reading with one eye open as I fell asleep at night just to soak in more of the story. It's told in the first-person point of view of three different characters and I found it especially interesting to read two points of view to the same situation. Reading this book was like finding myself at home, listening to people I have known all my life but only just met. I cannot recomme...more
For me, Naylor does the type of magical realism that I can understand. She brings in elements of country lore and mysticalism mixes it with real world stoytelling. When people believe in magic strong and hard through generations, then there is something very real that develops at out it. Also, of course, I like the love story.
People sleep on Glora Naylor.
Naylor keeps the story in contemporary time and doen't go through dozens of generations to tell the story or delves into so much symbolism that...more
People sleep on Glora Naylor.
Naylor keeps the story in contemporary time and doen't go through dozens of generations to tell the story or delves into so much symbolism that...more
This is a great novel! It's a complex story that has themes in equal weighting between a love story, supernatural happenings, generational conflicts, and the dynamic definition of the word "family". The author has a wonderful writing style that paints a very detailed picture of the surroundings and situations without being too wordy. That's probably why the story can be so complex without being overwhelming. There is so much covered in this book, that I'd recommend it to anyone.
I really liked h...more
I really liked h...more
I'm still processing this book. I may be processing forever. I think it's one of those stories that will continue to haunt me for years to come, thoughts of a slow fall or lavender water popping into my mind when I'm doing the laundry, or protecting Ophelia from the rain.
I don't know what to think about this book because I don't know that it even made me think. But it surely made me feel. I feel sadness. I feel gratitude. I feel love. I feel sentimental and heartbroken over things I shouldn't e...more
I don't know what to think about this book because I don't know that it even made me think. But it surely made me feel. I feel sadness. I feel gratitude. I feel love. I feel sentimental and heartbroken over things I shouldn't e...more
This is a great book recommended by my lovely friend Tawny and I am very grateful or I might not have stumbled upon it for awhile. A magical story of love, bitterness, revenge, redemption and set in the South with one of the best characters I've been introduced to in a long time.
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This book was the most painfully disappointing thing I ever read.
Now, note I say disappointing, not bad. For the majority of this richly written novel, I was enraptured. As a big fan of magical realism, and especially the magical traditions of America, I loved the character of Mama Day and the mystical origins of Sapphira Wade that were hinted at throughout the book. For those who enjoyed "Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil" but wished for more Minerva, Miranda "Mama" Day will leave you fee...more
Now, note I say disappointing, not bad. For the majority of this richly written novel, I was enraptured. As a big fan of magical realism, and especially the magical traditions of America, I loved the character of Mama Day and the mystical origins of Sapphira Wade that were hinted at throughout the book. For those who enjoyed "Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil" but wished for more Minerva, Miranda "Mama" Day will leave you fee...more
A beautiful story about a town called "Willow Springs," so tiny it doesn't appear on any maps and the story of the generations of women who have lived there. More precisely it is the story of Cocoa, the latest member of that family line. The writing is entrancing and has a feeling of a dialogue between the town's inhabitants and the reader. Be warned, this story contains the most terrifying nightmare description of an illness that I have ever read. It scares me every time.
I wanted to like this, I really did. But honestly, if I hadn't been reading it for book club, I probably wouldn't have finished it. It's very hard to follow, especially in the beginning, because it frequently alternates narrators and the narrators alternate their style of narration. For instance, Mama Day might go from calling Cocoa "Cocoa" to calling her "you." The threads of the family's history that are woven into the story seemed important, but they are so vague that I feel like I missed the...more
Well...I was told by two good friends that this book was one of the best they've ever read. I don't totally debunk their ideas, but I can't say that I share the same opinion. The book was good...just weird. It was really slow starting out, and I sometimes felt it could've been condensed to a short story or novella. I am totally down with the whole "voodoo" type thing...or I thought I was. I beleive in lots of crazy spiritual shit, but some of the stuff in this book was out of this world. Hey--ma...more
Wow. Although very hard to understand in the beginning, the book pulled my attention nevertheless. Once I understood that there were 3 narratives (Mama Day, George and Cocoa) it didn't require that mental strain it did in the beginning. I just had to read on.
Although I'm not sure I've understood everything to the fullest, I truly enjoyed reading this book. At some times I thought the book could've been speeded up a little, but I think that the main reason for that is that it's on my booklist and...more
Although I'm not sure I've understood everything to the fullest, I truly enjoyed reading this book. At some times I thought the book could've been speeded up a little, but I think that the main reason for that is that it's on my booklist and...more
I read this first in college and loved it. A few years later I couldn't remember much of the plot so I re-read it and loved it just as much...even cried a few times. (to be expected with me.) It's a little dense/stream-of-consciousness and switches among 3 points of view...but I didn't have trouble staying engaged. If anything I had trouble putting it down. If you are weirded out by magical realism or voodoo, maybe skip it. But being a person of faith I was interested in the voodoo aspect, at le...more
Favorite Quotes
She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot. She turned the moon into salve, the stars into swaddling cloth, and healed the wounds of every creature walking up on two or down on four.
She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot. She turned the moon into salve, the stars into swaddling cloth, and healed the wounds of every creature walking up on two or down on four.
From the Library Journal:
"Willow Springs is a sparsely populated sea island just off America's southeastern coast whose small black community is dominated by the elderly matriarch, Miranda "Mama" Day. When Mama Day's greatniece, Cocoa, marries, she returns to Willow Springs with her husband for an extended visit. Once there, strange forcesboth natural and supernaturalwork to separate the couple. After visiting the menacing Ruby, a local root doctor, Cocoa becomes dangerously ill, and the struggl...more
"Willow Springs is a sparsely populated sea island just off America's southeastern coast whose small black community is dominated by the elderly matriarch, Miranda "Mama" Day. When Mama Day's greatniece, Cocoa, marries, she returns to Willow Springs with her husband for an extended visit. Once there, strange forcesboth natural and supernaturalwork to separate the couple. After visiting the menacing Ruby, a local root doctor, Cocoa becomes dangerously ill, and the struggl...more
Reminiscent of Thier eyes were watching god, as the love story goes, but set in New Yory city and south carolina. if youve ever spent some time off the coast of s. carolina or havent, you will appreciate the wild ass voodoo sad and heartening story of three women's friendship along with death and time and learning to get on.
Every time I read this book I love it more and more. It is raw in its emotional power and leaves you feeling like you've understood, if only momentarily, the coy dance between free will and destiny.
It's also impeccably written, with magical realism so real it can scare, love, humor, and most of all, humanity.
Read it!
It's also impeccably written, with magical realism so real it can scare, love, humor, and most of all, humanity.
Read it!
One of the most complex and colorful books I've ever read. The first part may be harder to get into, the main characters start off pretty jaded, but they change with time. And really the whole book starts once they both end up going home to the island together. An incredible read.
This novel is absolutely enchanting. Naylor seamlessly entwines the stories of generations of love and loss, magic and belief. Naylor paints her feisty matriarch, Mama Day, as a complex and believable character. Not in the mammy, Tyler Perry-esque tradition. Honor and love ooze from every page of this novel. If you don't see yourself in any of these characters, you certainly can see someone you know in them.
Naylor's writing is stunningly beautiful without losing an ounce of authenticity. I refr...more
Naylor's writing is stunningly beautiful without losing an ounce of authenticity. I refr...more
Gloria Naylor? Who is she, I asked? I was reading a book by another author, who continuously incorporated the names of books and their authors being read by her main character. And there was Gloria Naylor! So, next trip to the library, I looked up the shelf where Gloria Naylor resides . . . and there was Mama Day. Not the usual theme I look for in a book, but once I got started I couldn't put it down! An intriguing storyline from the deep south (my home growing up) which incorporates the natural...more
I can definitely see how some people who reviewed this book got confused with the jumping from character to character. My library copy had notes someone had made, including who each section was narrated by, so that simplified things for me. I don't know what I would have thought otherwise.
The first few chapters didn't really draw me in, but once I started recognizing characters, I really liked it. There was a whole bunch of symbolism in there that I'm not yet sure what to do with, but I loved h...more
The first few chapters didn't really draw me in, but once I started recognizing characters, I really liked it. There was a whole bunch of symbolism in there that I'm not yet sure what to do with, but I loved h...more
I'm not quite sure what to say about this one. There were moments of "wow, that is so well-written" and there were other moments where I could easily skip a paragraph or two and not miss a thing, and there were moments that were hard to swallow, sad. I'm going to have to take some time to process this one. Amazing character development and I loved the wisdom intermingled with the sauciness of Mama Day. What a lady to write.
Warning: the book is from the perspective of two main characters and a na...more
Warning: the book is from the perspective of two main characters and a na...more
It's not often that you read a book that is magical and practical at the same time, but to me, Mama Day straddles both worlds. Set on an island that doesn't belong to South Carolina or Georgia, the story feels like it is set outside of time and space as well. I often think of this book, and the way Naylor says that every relationship has four sides-- his side, her side, the inside and the outside. In other words what he thinks, what she thinks, what people see, and what really happens. It's eleg...more
I found this book left behind by someone, so I picked it up. I'm so thankful I did. I think it's an undergraduate lit-class standard, no?, and though I'd heard of it I never read it. And then happenstance places it in front of you. It's a fantastic book full of family, charm and love and warmth and power. I can see why it's a standard for those learning about great writing. The format of the narrative is linear but we switch between the first-person of two people and third-person narration when...more
I had a really hard time getting into this book, but I LOVED the last 70 pgs that made it worth the read. It's about a small island off S. Carolina where only African American's live and it talks about their heritage to a degree, Mama Day, her grand niece Cocoa and Cocoa's boyfriend/husband. The book rotates through each of their thoughts of life etc. What I found most interesting was it talked about how Mama Day had "powers" so to say or "hoo doo". Is it real or not? Is she just smart with medi...more
Mama Day is a beautiful book in so many ways, but I have to say that it lost some of its magic the second time through. Perhaps my disappointment comes with age, with experience. I'm a closer reader, reading behind the story for structure, and frankly, the magical realism didn't work so well for me this time. The book just didn't cast the same spell on an older, wiser widow as it did on a young woman. I was frustrated with Cocoa (Ophelia) as a character. She seemed childish and foolish to me. An...more
I changed my mind a lot as to whether I liked this book. After discussing it with my book club, my opinion improved dramatically. I really think it is a book you have to read at least twice. I felt like I was wading through it and kept getting lost and I knew I was missing things. After stepping back and discussing themes and meanings, and hearing other people's interpretations and finally feeling like I have some sort of grasp on what the author was trying to communicate, I can say this was wor...more
After reading my review of Edgar Sawtelle, my friend Anna told me that I had to read Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, a loose reworking of Shakespeare's The Tempest. She loaned me her well-annotated copy (thanks!) and I dug in, not really knowing what to expect. Naylor keeps the supernatural elements present in the original text and the island setting, but she turns the rest upside down-- instead of being the story of white men, it's the story of African American women. It's an ingenious twist, and the...more
I had a really had time getting through this book. It's difficult to rate it and review it, because the writing is actually beautiful. The sentences go down like milk and honey. So the writing itself is lovely. And the premise (magical realism with a touch of voodoo) is great and gripping.
So what exactly did I have problem with? Well.... I didn't like the fact that you know the ending from the beginning. So there is no real mystery. Yet, the story unfolds like a mystery, but it can't be too mys...more
So what exactly did I have problem with? Well.... I didn't like the fact that you know the ending from the beginning. So there is no real mystery. Yet, the story unfolds like a mystery, but it can't be too mys...more
"Time is a funny thing. I was always puzzled with the way a single day could stretch itself out to the point of eternity in your mind, all the while years melted down into a fraction of a second. The clocks and calendars we had designed were incredibly crude attempts to order our reality -nearing the close of the twentieth century, and we were still slavishly tied to the cycles of the sun and the moon. All of those number were reassuring, but the were hardly real. Reality was the unshaven face i...more
When someone asks me what my favorite book is, or wants to know what to read next - I always talk about this book first. Not science fiction or fantasy - so more accessible to my more mainstream reading friends, and yet...
Can I tell you that I cried and cried and cried at the end of this book. Not because the ending is sad - although it is sad, but hopeful too - but because it was over.
The reason I cried so hard was because I would never again get the chance to read it for the first time. It wa...more
Can I tell you that I cried and cried and cried at the end of this book. Not because the ending is sad - although it is sad, but hopeful too - but because it was over.
The reason I cried so hard was because I would never again get the chance to read it for the first time. It wa...more
This was particularly well-written in interesting prose. The story was unlike any I've ever read before. I was disappointed with the turn it took toward the end...kind of changed into a bad tv movie so that kept me from giving it the 5 stars that I was originally thinking.
For the past two years in late July, I have ended up reading novels about the Georgia/South Carolina coastline, I have found this to be very interesting (both times were by serendipity).
For the past two years in late July, I have ended up reading novels about the Georgia/South Carolina coastline, I have found this to be very interesting (both times were by serendipity).
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| SPOILER: Problem with ending | 4 | 24 | May 01, 2012 09:09am |
Gloria Naylor (b. January 25, 1950 in New York City) is an African American novelist. Her novel The Women of Brewster Place was adapted into a 1989 film of the same name by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions.
She was the first child to Roosevelt Naylor and Alberta McAlpin and in 1963 moved to Queens with her family. She joined the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1968. She believes she has been subject to min...more
More about Gloria Naylor...
She was the first child to Roosevelt Naylor and Alberta McAlpin and in 1963 moved to Queens with her family. She joined the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1968. She believes she has been subject to min...more
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“She could walk through a lightning storm without being touched; grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand; use the heat of lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot. She turned the moon into salve, the stars into swaddling cloth, and healed the wounds of every creature walking up on two or down on four.”
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“The right woman is the one you can live with, not the one in your head.”
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