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    Mama Day
    Mama Day
    Mama Day
    Audiobook11 hours

    Mama Day

    Written by Gloria Naylor

    Narrated by Unspecified

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A “wonderful novel” steeped in the folklore of the South from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women of Brewster Place (The Washington Post Book World).

    On an island off the coast of Georgia, there’s a place where superstition is more potent than any trappings of the modern world. In Willow Springs, the formidable Mama Day uses her powers to heal. But her great niece, Cocoa, can’t wait to get away.

    In New York City, Cocoa meets George. They fall in love and marry quickly. But when she finally brings him home to Willow Springs, the island’s darker forces come into play. As their connection is challenged, Cocoa and George must rely on Mama Day’s mysticism.

    Told from multiple perspectives, Mama Day is equal parts star-crossed love story, generational saga, and exploration of the supernatural. Hailed as Gloria Naylor’s “richest and most complex” novel, it is the kind of book that stays with you long after the final page (Providence Journal).

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJul 4, 2008
    ISBN9781423359135
    Mama Day
    Author

    Gloria Naylor

    Gloria Naylor (1950–2016) grew up in New York City. She received her bachelor of arts in English from Brooklyn College and her master of arts in Afro-American Studies from Yale University. Her first novel, The Women of Brewster Place, won the National Book Award. She is also the author of Linden Hills, Mama Day, Bailey's Cafe, The Men of Brewster Place, and the fictionalized memoir 1996.  

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    Reviews for Mama Day

    4/5

    291 ratings15 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I love all the Gloria Naylor's works especially this one
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. Although there is an element of mysticism that figures prominently in the story it is, at heart, about people and community - interesting characters who are quite different from one another yet all fit together beautifully in this work. It is sometimes a sad book in that bad things happen to good people yet, for me, that wasn’t as meaningful to the story as the comfort and joy in the strong relationships between the characters.I sometimes get irritated with books with multiple narrators and character’s points of view but I think it was pulled off very well here and I never felt confused or jolted by the switch between narrators. Naylor does a beautiful job bringing to life Willow Springs and it’s residents. Mama Day made me smile and laugh to myself so often I know she will stay in my thoughts for a long while. I didn’t even mind the characters that I personally found rather unlikeable, such as Cocoa, because they were so well fleshed out and vital to the story.This is my first book by Gloria Naylor but I now have the rest of her novels on my to read list and I can’t wait to get to them.
    • 5/5
      Lost for words, loved listening to this book! Great book!
    • 5/5
      The overall novel is very well-written and immensely interesting. I grew up in the South in a similar town around a lot of “mystical” people so it brought back a lot of very happy and warm memories for me. I found it very hard to like one of the main characters, Coco. She came off as shallow, immature and undeserving of the great lengths those who loved her went through on her behalf. Coco was by far the least interesting character in the entire yet also the most infuriating. Perhaps it was the author’s intention to center the novel of a woman such as Coco so that the other characters’ depth could be shown. But is not by any means a criticism of the novel but actually a testament to just how wonderful the novel was in that it created this complexity of characters that made me want to think about them long after the novel was finished.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite book. I first read it when I was 22, three years after I met my soulmate and now late husband. It helped me understand him so much better, and appreciate the sacredness of love itself. On November 7th it will be exactly years since he died, and this second visit helped me have exactly the cry I needed to have before I remarry. Thank you Gloria Naylor, brilliant earth angel.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I reread Mama Day while on vacation this summer and it was great, once again. Naylor writes such rich female characters and it's hard not to count them among personal friends and enemies when the book's over.
    • 5/5
      Mama Day! Is it a contemporary story? Yes, partly. Is it a folktale? Yes, partly. Is It history? Yes, partly. In addition, there are influences from Shakespeare and magical realism.

      While some of this imaginative story takes place in New York City, most of the action is on Willow Springs, a fictional island that is between, but does not belong to, South Carolina and Georgia. The island has an unusual history and an unusual cast of characters, one of whose three names is Ophelia.

      I so enjoyed this book that I didn't want it to end!
    • 4/5
      Another strong book by Naylor. A city woman is still tied to her country roots, exemplified by the elder women who raised her. In another author, I would call this magical realism, but here it just seems like daily life. I'm still not sure I understood what Seraphina was all about...the distant past remains shrouded in mystery (or mystique).At times I had to be very focused to track which character was speaking/thinking, as they aren't always identified. That was good, in its way, as it kept me engaged with the story.
    • 5/5
      It's not often that you read a book that is magical and practical at the same time, but to me, Mama Day straddles both worlds. Set on an island that doesn't belong to South Carolina or Georgia, the story feels like it is set outside of time and space as well. I often think of this book, and the way Naylor says that every relationship has four sides-- his side, her side, the inside and the outside. In other words what he thinks, what she thinks, what people see, and what really happens. It's elegant in its simplicity.

      For me, there's something magical about the book. I think it may be how it's written, switching perspectives to move the story along. It's a book i often reccomend to family and friends.
    • 5/5
      An immensely moving book with so much to say on the meanings of love, fidelity, and strength. Multiple protagonists and narrators were woven together into one cohesive story that is truly compelling; I found myself stopping and rereading passages not because I didn't understand them the first time but because I wanted to savor the way that they made me feel.One of my favorite lines of dialogue:How can I go with you? she asked him.One foot before the other, he told her.
    • 5/5
      This is a story filled with the magic of full rich characters,most of them strong and loving women. Much of it takes placeon Willow Island, a barrier island off the shores of Georgia andSouth Carolina. The residents of Willow Island live a life similarto that which their ancestors lived a hundred years before. While theydid have modern conveniences, they certainly didn't depend on them for happiness. Love, family and tradition ruled their day. Mama day, Abigail, Cocoa, Ruby and more. They all have their own story, and they tell it, or have it told in rich mellow voices. Idon't know how anyone can read this book and not love Mama Day and Abigail. And they have within them a magic all their own. A knowing that has been lostto most over the generations. I have to believe that they are based on women known by the author, otherwise how did she make them so real? Andif they are not, all the more kudos to their creator. Cocoa, a younger woman from their family spends most of her time in NewYork City, where she lives, works and falls in love. She too, is quitea force, but often more negative then she should be. We find out in the story how life changes her.
    • 5/5
      If someone, like David Wroblewski, wants to write a tragedy he should read a little Gloria Naylor to get some perspective on how it should be done. This is a powerful book with noble people - Mama Day, the matriarch we'd all want to turn to for strength, her loving sister Abigail, the fierce Cocoa, the proud and practical George. There's also a trifling worthless man, a colorful character and a mountainous example of wobbly malevolence. The people all interact in a beautiful nowhere island where time passes as it passes and nature, love and loss rule all. Recommended for anyone who wants to experience literature at its best.
    • 4/5
      Magical, mythical.
    • 5/5
      This is a story in parts - Mama Day strides across most of it like a colossus. I want to call her the matriarch, but she's not a mother. Perhaps the high priestess is a better description.Cocoa, her grand-niece, and George, Cocoa's husband who ultimately sacrifices himself to save Cocoa's life because he can't understand the world he is in.And that's the other part of this story. Mama Day lives in a world that we might call magical, although she denies she "does that Hoodoo nonsense." Cocoa crosses that world to the everyday world of job hunting, marriage, dinner parties and the like. George is firmly based in the mundane - he's an engineer who never has the grand idea, but takes the grand ideas of others and turns them into hard reality.The clash of these ideas and worlds makes for a compelling, fascinating book. Unusually to my mind, George is the character that I strongly suspect most of us will relate to - he's the everyman that relates to this wild, old, confusing world in which his wife grew up.
    • 5/5
      One of my favourite novels and the book that helped me discover the work of Gloria Naylor. The magical realism reminds one of the works of Isabel Allende. For fans of southern American literature, this is a must read.