By Helen Oyeyemi
This book has been on the "Best of" lists at Chapters for long time. It is a very unusual story. It seems to reference fairy tales to some extent - there are two sisters one very blonde one black-- rose red and snow white, and the blonde one is even named snow. The main character, Boy, feels she has a spell on herself. The three main character's reflections don't show up in mirrors... this is never explained...
The story starts with the life of Bird. She is living with her very violent father, a rat-catcher, who beats her and torments her. Bird finally has enough and runs away from home. She loves him too. She jumps on a bus and arrives in a town where she remains for the rest of her life. She leaves behind a young man, Charlie, who is very much in love with her. She lives in fear of her father tracking her down and seeking revenge.
When she arrives at the end of her bus ride she follows some young girls to a boarding house where she is welcomed. She stumbles through various jobs eventually getting a job in a bookstore. She meets a man, who has a beautiful young daughter, Snow, who is adored by everyone. She doesn't love the man but he keeps persisting and eventually she succumbs and agrees to marry him. Before she gets married her former boyfriend contacts her and asks her to marry him, but she turns him down. Why?? Does she think she doesn't deserve to be happy. Her husband is a jewellry artist and at one point makes handcuffs and chains.... is he threatening her?? Later he makes a snake bracelet that extends from her elbow to her upper arm, she wears it all the time except when she is pregnant. What is his intention in this?
Her husband's mother and other relatives tolerate her but they dote on his daughter Snow. Everyone seems to think that she is perfect and can do no wrong. Bird likes her but is suspicious of her. When Boy has a baby girl the child is black in colouring. Of course people think she cheated on her husband but the truth is he is of negro ancestry, his relatives have pretended to be white to become successful. The story describes why the family felt it had to go north and act white to be accepted and respected.
Boy finds out that her husband's oldest sister was sent away as a child because she wasn't white skinned. After she finds this out Boy decides to send Snow away to live with her husband's sister. Everyone is shocked at this, they would have expected her to send Bird away. Bird refuses to have anything to do with Snow but her husband visits with her regularly and eventually Bird and Snow start a letter writing campaign.
As Boy wasn't loved by her parent you would think she would have loved both girls, but it seems that she resents the appeal that Snow has with everyone, figures she will have the strength to survive, but she doesn't want Bird to have to live in Snow's shadow. Bird eventually learns that she has a sister who was sent away. Her mother won't talk about her but keeps some letters she received from he daughter. Bird eventually finds these letters and reads them, including a letter from Snow addressed to her. Snow eventually has accepted the fact that she will not be returning to live with her father and stepmother. She accepts life with her black aunt and her family.
Bird is friends with a young chinese boy. He is the victim of some bullying because of his race. She seems to be the only one able to engage in a true loving relationship. Eventually Snow and her adopted family join the rest of the family for Thanksgiving. It is a meal from hell -- all the family tensions come out. Snow and Bird end up having a fight as they are washing dishes after the meal.
One day Bird is dragged down from a tree by a strange man. He tells her her mother is his daughter and that her mother is evil. She is a afraid of what he will do so agrees to go to a diner with him. He starts to tell a very different story than what Boy remembers of his life with the man. Bird's father finds them in the diner and sends the man away telling him never to come back.
Bird's friend (who had an abortion and trouble recovering from it) tells her that she has been doing research on her, Bird's, father. She has found out something amazing.... there is a birth certificate for Bird listing a mother's name but not a father's name. She then goes on to state that Bird's mother had been a graduate student showing great promise. She was a lesbian. She is raped. She runs away from college and gives birth to Bird, she then takes up a job as a rat catcher. Bird and her friend think the father? mother might be visiting to come clean.
They decide to set off for New York to find Bird's parent, only after she asks for advice on how to break a spell.... when you are fed up with it, it won't affect you anymore.
This book was very difficult to read, there was so much sadness and discord, lonliness, feeling of being rejected, not good enough. Why didn't Bird marry her first boyfriend, the one who loved her and whom she loved? Why couldn't they have lived happily ever after? As she didn't choose that route, she became the wicked stepmother.... rejecting her beautiful step daughter and sending her away in favour of her less attractive, less captivating black daughter. Obviously the book was making reference to the reverence, assumed goodness of "whiteness". Like Bird's husband's family pretended to be white, Birds mother decided to become a man. Would this be safer for her? Why was she so cruel to her daughter?
I never could figure out why the three women, Boy, Snow and Bird could never been seen in mirrors... something to do with them not being what others expected to see? not being real? a spell on them? I started to think that this was possibly a made up story to cover up something else that happened.... like Life of Pi, but that didn't seem to occur. A very puzzling story.
No comments:
Post a Comment