On a spring day in 2001, while Melody and Malcolm, her childhood friend and date, swirl around the dance floor, so do the memories for the teenager and the key players in her life. The baby bump deprived Iris of her own introduction into society: now she must look on as her daughter descends the stairs wearing the white dress she was not permitted to wear and is serenaded by an orchestra playing an instrumental version of Prince’s “Darling Nikki”. Melody is also the product of a teenage pregnancy that has left her estranged from her mother, Iris, who chose the distance of college in Ohio over nappies, baby bottles and the domesticity of her parents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Melody is smart, pretty, private school privileged and much adored by her father, Aubrey, and proud grandparents, Sabe and Po’Boy. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives–even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.I n US author Jacqueline Woodson’s haunting novel, a 16-year-old girl’s coming-of-age party prompts an avalanche of memories for her middle-class African American family. Unfurling the history of Melody’s parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they’ve paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony– a celebration that ultimately never took place.
Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress.
As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson’s taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child. You can read this before Red at the Bone PDF EPUB full Download at the bottom. Here is a quick description and cover image of book Red at the Bone written by Jacqueline Woodson which was published in. Brief Summary of Book: Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
0 kommentar(er)
