In celebration of Black History Month, we’ll be highlighting a diverse range of books – poetry, novels, memoirs and more – all written by Black American authors. Each of these works moved, engaged, delighted, enraged, and excited Island Free Library readers’ this past year, and we’ll be featuring one title every day through the month of February.
Today’s work is Suzan-Lori Parks’ Getting Mother’s Body, a rowdy, bawdy, moving tale that opens with the protagonist asking “Where my panties at?” Don’t be dismayed, teenage Billy Beede may be pregnant and down on her luck, but she has a plan to secure some wealth, fix her life and marry the man she wants – she just has to dig up her mother’s body to do it! Parks’ novel is full of surprises, always honest, a tragi-comedy that just won’t quit.
Suzan-Lori Parks is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, musician, and the first Black woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. The recipient of a 2001 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant, Parks is also a Tony winner, Obie winner, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist multiple times. Parks lives and writes in NYC, where she teaches playwriting at the Tisch School of the Arts.
Stay tuned for a new book tomorrow!