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Imamu Jones #3
And I Heard a Bird Sing
Eighteen-year-old Imamu's newly-found contentment, with his job and the apartment he shares with his frail mother, is shattered when he is inadvertently drawn into the sinister events taking place in a wealthy household where he has been delivering groceries.Eighteen-year-old Imamu's newly-found contentment with his job and the apartment he shares with his frail mother is shattered when he is inadvertently drawn into the sinister events taking place in a wealthy household where he delivers groceries
232 pages, Hardcover
First published January 25, 1990
About the author
Rosa Guy
29 books79 followersRosa Cuthbert Guy (1925-2012) was an American writer.
Born in Trinidad, Rosa Guy moved to the United States with her family at the age of seven, where they settled in New York in 1932. Soon after, her parents, Henry and Audrey Cuthbert, died. After, she and her sister went to many foster homes. She quit school at age fourteen and took a job to help support her family.
During World War II she joined the American Negro Theatre. She studied theatre and writing at the University of New York.
Guy wrote a number of books aimed at young adults. Many of her books reflect on the dependability of family members who love and care for one other. Her works include: Bird at My Window (1966), Children of Longing (1971), The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), Edith Jackson (1978), The Disappearance (1979), Mirror of Her Own (1981), A Measure of Time (1983), and New Guys Around the Block (1983), Paris, Pee Wee and Big Dog (1984), My Love, My Love, or the Peasant Girl (1985), And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987).
She is divorced from Warner Guy, with whom she had a son, Warner Guy Jr.
Born in Trinidad, Rosa Guy moved to the United States with her family at the age of seven, where they settled in New York in 1932. Soon after, her parents, Henry and Audrey Cuthbert, died. After, she and her sister went to many foster homes. She quit school at age fourteen and took a job to help support her family.
During World War II she joined the American Negro Theatre. She studied theatre and writing at the University of New York.
Guy wrote a number of books aimed at young adults. Many of her books reflect on the dependability of family members who love and care for one other. Her works include: Bird at My Window (1966), Children of Longing (1971), The Friends (1973), Ruby (1976), Edith Jackson (1978), The Disappearance (1979), Mirror of Her Own (1981), A Measure of Time (1983), and New Guys Around the Block (1983), Paris, Pee Wee and Big Dog (1984), My Love, My Love, or the Peasant Girl (1985), And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987).
She is divorced from Warner Guy, with whom she had a son, Warner Guy Jr.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 7, 2024
The final volume in the Imamu Jones trilogy and very nearly a fine murder mystery on top of Imamu's struggles against racial prejudice both real and perceived. Imamu's character is especially well drawn as he fights to preserve his mother's health and prevent her sliding back into alcoholism, combats the overt and aggressive prejudice of nouveau riche lawyer James Gleaner and the unthinking and casual racism of his employer Mr. McDermott, and is in danger of allowing the turmoil in his teenage emotions poison his relations with his former foster parents and their daughter Gail.
Those parts of the story are by far the best and strongly told. When he becomes involved in the murder of Margaret Maldoon and at times turns into an impulsive boy detective, the plot wavers a little as the crime story takes over. But it rallies again at the end when his mother is able to show she is winning her addiction battle under her own terms at least, the murderer is uncovered in a little drawing room scene of detective confronting suspects that would have done Agatha Christie proud, and finally Imamu comes to understand that his fate is in his own hands and is not necessarily predetermined by his race and the attitudes of white people to it.
The book was first published in 1987 and it is sad to see how little has changed over the intervening 36 years. Imamu now would still be despised by some and judged in terms of ability, intelligence, honesty, readiness to be violent, and morals on the basis of racial stereotypes. He would still be a delivery boy with a benevolent but patriarchal white employer all too ready to accept the word of other white people against his. He would still be thought incapable of ambition, a perpetual under-achiever, and as he grows up regarded as a physical and sexual threat.
The book has faults, mainly in the murder mystery and the way a family would accept an 18 year old entering heir house and wandering around looking for clues. And then there is Chips, Guiseppe the gardener's son. Chips has mental and possibly physical disabilities, but was it necessary for the author to keep referring to him as retarded and to describe him prowling around the garden and spying through windows at Ms. Maldoon as if he were some form of predatory Quasimodo? It is amazing how easily prejudice can appear when one relaxes one's guard. Nevertheless, although not as strong as New Guys Around The Block, I would still recommend reading it.
Those parts of the story are by far the best and strongly told. When he becomes involved in the murder of Margaret Maldoon and at times turns into an impulsive boy detective, the plot wavers a little as the crime story takes over. But it rallies again at the end when his mother is able to show she is winning her addiction battle under her own terms at least, the murderer is uncovered in a little drawing room scene of detective confronting suspects that would have done Agatha Christie proud, and finally Imamu comes to understand that his fate is in his own hands and is not necessarily predetermined by his race and the attitudes of white people to it.
The book was first published in 1987 and it is sad to see how little has changed over the intervening 36 years. Imamu now would still be despised by some and judged in terms of ability, intelligence, honesty, readiness to be violent, and morals on the basis of racial stereotypes. He would still be a delivery boy with a benevolent but patriarchal white employer all too ready to accept the word of other white people against his. He would still be thought incapable of ambition, a perpetual under-achiever, and as he grows up regarded as a physical and sexual threat.
The book has faults, mainly in the murder mystery and the way a family would accept an 18 year old entering heir house and wandering around looking for clues. And then there is Chips, Guiseppe the gardener's son. Chips has mental and possibly physical disabilities, but was it necessary for the author to keep referring to him as retarded and to describe him prowling around the garden and spying through windows at Ms. Maldoon as if he were some form of predatory Quasimodo? It is amazing how easily prejudice can appear when one relaxes one's guard. Nevertheless, although not as strong as New Guys Around The Block, I would still recommend reading it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review