Mama

by Terry McMillan

Overview

The explosive novel that introduced the world to #1 New York Times bestselling author Terry McMillan.

Mildred Peacock is the tough, funny, feisty heroine of Mama, a survivor who’ll do anything to keep her family together. In Mildred’s world, men come and go as quickly as her paychecks, but her five children are her dream, her hope, and her future. Not since Alice Walker’s The Color Purple has a black woman’s story been portrayed with such rich power, honesty, and love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451216717
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/06/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	370,224
Product dimensions:	7.98(w) x 5.22(h) x 0.74(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Terry McMillan is the award-winning, critically acclaimed #1 New York Times bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale, Getting to Happy, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, A Day Late and a Dollar Short, The Interruption of Everything, Who Asked You?, Mama, Disappearing Acts, I Almost Forgot About You, It’s Not All Downhill From Here, and the editor of Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction. She lives in California.

Hometown:

Danville, California

Date of Birth:

October 18, 1951

Place of Birth:

Port Huron, Michigan

Education:

B.S. in journalism, UC-Berkeley, 1979; M.F.A. in film, Columbia University, 1980

What People are Saying About This

Ishmael Reed

When it comes to portraying the authentic style of marginal Americans, Terry MacMillan has few peers. Her prose is brilliant and exhilarating.

Editorial Reviews

A gutsy depiction of a soul in America...Powerfully evocative and inspired.”—The Boston Globe

“Mama is extremely funny throughout and at the same time honest about what a good woman will do to push her children higher than she can hope to go...touching and steadfastly unsentimental.”—Detroit Free Press

“Mama distinguishes itself by its exuberant sensibility...a fine novel.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Mama has Zora Neale Hurston’s vernacular humor and John Irving’s absurdity. McMillan is a master of black humor in both senses of the phrase.”—The Village Voice

From the Publisher

This is McMillan's zesty first novel about an impoverished black family's struggle to overcome its problems.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Mama, a first novel, tells of a proud black woman, Mildred Peacock, and her five children. After a violent fight, Mildred throws her drunken husband out of the house. On her own in the poor town of Point Haven, Michigan, Mildred scrimps and drinks, works and goes on welfare, struggling to raise her kids and keep her sanity. Mildred's closest bond is to her oldest daughter, Freda, and their lives parallel each other's progress from despair to hope. The book's main weakness is that the author apparently could not decide what to leave out. She also has not decided who her audience is: at times she seems to be writing to blacks, at other times to be explaining things to naive white readers. Although the story has power, it lacks focus and a clear point of view.
-- Janet Boyarin Blundell, MLS, Brookdale Community College Adjunct Faculty, Lincroft, New Jersey

Library Journal