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Book Review of Somebody Else's Mama (Harvest Book)

Somebody Else's Mama (Harvest Book)
reviewed on + 71 more book reviews


Would be good if you are facing caring for elderly parents, or are trying to rekindle a marriage.

From Publishers Weekly
Haynes's novel probes the dynamics and tensions in three generations of a middle-class black family living under one roof.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Haynes lovingly describes a world both insular and nurturing, but one that appears to be vanishing: middle-class life in a small, exclusively African American Missouri town. Paula and Al Johnson are living the American dream. Al is a successful small-town newspaper publisher about to launch a foray into local politics, and Paula is a high-school teacher. Their adolescent twin sons, Tim and Tom, though studies in contrast, are good kids with bright futures. Into this stable life comes Miss Kezee, Al's aging mother, who no longer seems to be able to take care of herself, but whom Paula adamantly resists placing in a nursing home. Miss Kezee is angry at being removed from her home in St. Paul, Minnesota, distrustful of Paula, and miserable to the twins. Miss Kezee hates the small town and the house in which Al and Paula live; it was where she lived with her much-hated first husband, Al's father. As each major character narrates the story in alternating segments, the reader sees the family take its first steps toward understanding and acceptance. Recommended for most fiction collections.