Haynes, Melinda "Mother of Pearl"

Haynes, Melinda "Mother of Pearl" - 1999

This book had been on my TBR pile for quite a while before I picked it up. Really don't know why, maybe the cover prevented me (or the fact that there are 200 more books waiting).

Anyway, I loved this novel. It's an Oprah book and until now I liked every single one of the ones I did read (quite a few).

Every time I read a novel set in the South in that time, I am glad I didn't have to live then and there. There were so many restrictions, especially for coloured people, but also for anyone who didn't "belong".

Joody Two Shoes is a bit of a fortune teller, someone who knows everything, she brings some mysticism into this novel that heavily verges on Magic Realism.

From the back cover:
"Set in the Deep South in the late 1950s, Mother of Pearl vividly brings to life the extraordinary inhabitants of the small town of Petal, Mississippi. Central to the novel are the stories of Even Grade, a 28-year-old black man abandoned by his mother at birth, Valuable Korner, a 15-year-old white girl whose family history holds a trunkful of damning secrets, and Joody Two Sun, an enigmatic obeah woman who sees into the hearts and minds of the townsfolk from her riverside camp on the outskirts of town. Cast in a tragicomic passion play, Even, Val, and Joody find their destinies entwined as they search for the love and family that they have always been denied."