![]() ![]() The plot revolves around two best friends growing up in a black community in Southern California. Or, as a character about to have a baby thinks, "magic you wanted was a miracle, magic you didn't was a haunting." ![]() Even in absence, motherhood is the ghostly shaping presence around these female lives. ![]() Mothered, motherless, mothered badly or well, wanting to be a mother, choosing not to be a mother - like most women, the women of The Mothers are in a lifelong, shifting and painful negotiation with motherhood. ![]() Here, at last, is a novel about ordinary black lives. Brit Bennett should not be exceptional, but she is The Mothers has many strengths, but it is extraordinary for that one miserable fact. The Mothers illustrates how rare major books that treat black families and friendships are, where racism and suffering are present in the story but not the entire story. Black lives, families and stories matter - but they don't have a commensurate place in fiction. The publishing industry, despite all those solemn, virtuous panels on diversity, has thus far shown little interest in ordinary black lives. But you wouldn't know it from paging through major publishers' catalogs. How?īlack lives matter - not only black deaths. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Mothers Author Brit Bennett ![]()
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