Killing Color - Softcover

Sherman, Charlotte

4.09

11 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 093497117X ISBN 13: 9780934971171

Publisher: Calyx Books, 1991

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Charlotte Watson Sherman's debut collection of short stories; a must-have for all who carry her titles

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From Kirkus Reviews:

Eleven folk-tale-style stories rich in musical language from an African-American writer in Seattle, winner of a regional fiction award. Sherman's characters sing and hum ``them old old songs, sound like folks bottled up with sorrow so sweet it turn to sugar.'' In the best stories here, the voice and sensibility are so credible that magical happenings and political messages go down smooth. In ``Swimming Lesson,'' trouble-making boys pressure sweet, pitiful, religious Neethie into walking off a log into the pond. The narrator--worried about being punished if Neethie gets dunked-- sings mlongo mlongo hmmhmmhmm o-o, magical African words that according to legend helped runaway slaves cross a river. The instigators run off without seeing Neethie walk on water, while the young witnesses take the miracle entirely in stride. ``Floating'' affectingly explores a young girl's reaction to abandonment by the mother who tried to abort her and who, years later, unexpectedly returns. The title story, about a mysterious woman taking revenge on KKK members, is marred by an explanatory ending, while the collection loses power as characters repeatedly find consolation in nature and the African past. A piece about a first menstruation initiation will appeal only to those who believe in creating women's rituals. Only ``Emerald City: Third & Pike''--a middle- class African-American encounters a crazed homeless woman--is not told exclusively in a down-home voice. An intermittently satisfying poetic sampler that at moments really hums. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review:

These are stories of power - the power of belief, rage, ritual, passion, healing. Deep, rough, muddy, and pure, at times they speak of forces so elemental or complex that story turns into song. A woman who talks with her eyes stands in front of the courthouse and stares; every night she gets in a different car and another Ku Klux Klan member disappears, just as her husband disappeared years ago. A man and a woman make love to the sound of the earth's humming. A young girl walks on water - just like Jesus, just like the slaves who walked away from the plantation and couldn't swim across the river that blocked their way: "mlongo mlongo hmmhmmhmmhmm o-o-. They knew they couldn't turn back so they kept on hummin that song and then they feet sank in the red mud at the edge of the river and come up covered with green sprouts climin on they ankles and circlin round and tiny wings grew from each ankle and started flappin back and forth, back and forth, gentle at first and then faster and faster. And they could feel the cold of them chains deep in the wet earth and the wings beatin harder and then they took a step into the yellow water but they first foot didn't go down." Not every story reaches as deep or achieves the same level of aesthetic liberation, but those that do explode the conventions of literature. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister

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