Month: September 2014

Black girls find magic in 32 Candles

When I described the opening of 32 Candles to a friend –poor, dark-skinned, black teen obsessed with John Hughes films and their happy endings dreams about being the star of her own fairy tale romance – my friend said: “That sounds like a book about you.” I chose not to take offence to her comment, after all, it’s 95% true. I love the novel’s lead character Davie Jones because like me she grew up on Pretty In Pink and The Breakfast Club and harboured the quiet hope that one day a gorgeous, charismatic guy would recognise the light hiding under her bushel and whisk her away from her hum-drum life. Unlike Davie Jones I did not grow up in Nowhere, Mississippi, the daughter of an alcoholic mother. I did not spend most of my childhood a selective mute after a traumatising incident. I was not called Monkey Night by colour-struck classmates. And I never made a play for the most popular boy town that went so badly wrong I was forced to flee town in …

Louisiana life is bittersweet in Queen Sugar

Charley Bordelon is a widow and single-mother. When she inherits a sugarcane farm from her father she opts to leave her failed life in LA behind, pack up and move in with her grandmother in Louisiana. Unbeknownst to Charley her grandmother has also invited her half-brother, Ralph Angel, to stay – a bitter man angry at being excluded from his father’s will. As tensions escalate at home, Charley must also contend with a host of problems on her new farm. Between the acres of neglected and dying crop and her hostile neighbours both black and white, she soon wonders if this is a feat she can pull off. The notion of a black woman owning a sugarcane farm in the Deep South a century after The Great Migration lends itself wholly to drama and conflict. When you throw in a bunch of charismatic relatives the stakes get even higher and the end result is highly compelling. I found Charley flawed and relatable and could only admire her tenacity: “She joined the crew, pulling armloads of …