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    Getting Mother's Body: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Getting Mother's Body: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Getting Mother's Body: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    Getting Mother's Body: A Novel

    Written by Suzan-Lori Parks

    Narrated by Suzan-Lori Parks

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Billy Beede, the teenage daughter of the fast-running, no-account, and six-years-dead Willa Mae, comes home one day to find a fateful letter waiting for her: Willa Mae's burial spot in LaJunta, Arizona, is about to be plowed up to make way for a supermarket.

    As Willa Mae's only daughter, Billy is heiress to her mother's substantial but unconfirmed fortune-a cache of jewels that Willa Mae's lover, Dill Smiles, is said to have buried with her. Dirt poor, living in a trailer with her Aunt June and Uncle Roosevelt behind a gas station in a tumbleweedy Texas town, and pregnant with an illegitimate child, Billy knows that treasure could mean salvation. So she steals Dill's pickup truck and, with her aunt and uncle in tow, heads for Arizona with Dill in hot pursuit. While everyone agrees it's only polite to speak of getting mother's body and moving her to a proper resting place, it's well understood that digging up Willa Mae's diamonds and pearls will make the whole trip a lot more worthwhile.

    The enormously accomplished fiction debut from Suzan-Lori Parks, the 2002 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Getting Mother's Body takes its place in the company of the classic works of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker. But when it comes to an ingenious, uproarious knack for depicting the trifling, hard-luck, down-and-out souls who need a little singing and laughing and lying and praying to get through the day, Suzan-Lori Parks shares the stage with no one.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 6, 2003
    ISBN9780739302989
    Unavailable
    Getting Mother's Body: A Novel
    Author

    Suzan-Lori Parks

    Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2002; Parks is the first African American woman to achieve this honor for drama.

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    Reviews for Getting Mother's Body

    3.5/5

    84 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      humm..not sure how to go about writing a review for this book. It was just so different. I got really involved with the story and the characters but at the same time I felt that they could have been more fleshed out. I couldn't give it 5 stars only because I didn't enjoy the "song lyrics".
    • 2/5
      I thought this would be a great book from the back cover...it received a really thrilling sounding review from Richard Russo and this author had won the Pulitzer for a drama she had written. I found it to be incredibly dull with characters that were all immensely unlikable. Set in a small Texas town in the 1960s, while some African Americans were traveling to D.C. to hear MLK forty years ago, others were apparently traveling around Texas to dig up the body of a mother buried with her jewels. Well, it's fiction thank God...and it was interesting t to see from the author's perspective how segregation and discrimination played its role in various southern towns. On the flipside, despite what good reviews it had received, it seemed incredibly dull reading. I guess I can sum it all up to say that when a book is written in alternating first person perspectives and all of the characters are as dumb as dirt, it doesn't make for a very engaging time of it. I realized the first page in I would hate this book but I hadn't brought anything else to the gym to read and I didn't want to watch TV so I was stuck. And then, when I had read 90 pages of it, I figured I may as well go and finish it.

      Not recommended.
    • 4/5
      Five months pregnant, Billy Beede heads up to Texhoma, Texas, to marry her fiance, Clifton Snipes, who designs individualized caskets for a living, Unfortunately, upon her arrival in Texhoma, Billy discovers Snipes' wife with baby #7 on the way.
    • 2/5
      Good little novel set in 1963 Texas. Pregnant girl sets out to recover the rumored treasure that is said to be buried with her mother. Story unfolds through short vignetted told from the different vignettes told from the different characters perspectives. Good quick read
    • 4/5
      I've never read anything by this author. The book jacket says she wonthe Pulitzer Prize for playwriters in 2002 for her play "TopDog/Underdog." I've never heard of it, either, so the only thing thatmade me pick this one up was the title.This is the story of a quest for buried treasure, set in 1963. WillaMae Beede was as fast as a race car when she was alive, going from loverto lover, doing whatever she felt like doing. She died after a badabortion, while her 10 year old daughter, Billy, looked on from thecorner of the room, hating her mother with everything she had in her.Willa Mae was buried in LaJunta, Arizona, by her lover Dill Smiles, inDill's mother's back yard, and she was buried with her most prizedpossessions, her diamond ring and her pearls.Six years later, Billy is living with her Aunt June and Uncle Rooseveltin a tiny trailer behind the gas station her Uncle runs in Lincoln,Texas. One day a letter arrives, telling Billy that her mother'sresting place is about to be plowed up and paved over to make a parkinglot for a new supermarket. Dirt poor and pregnant with an illegitimatechild, Billy knows that treasure is the only hope she has in this world,so she sets her mind to go to LaJunta, dig up her mother, and get thejewels. So, she steals Dill Smiles' pickup truck, talks her aunt anduncle into going with her, and heads for Arizona, with Dill in hotpursuit. Along the way, we meet some other members of the Beede familywho live between Texas and Arizona and the travelers stop to visit, eat,wash up and move on, with one of the family members in tow.This book is written entirely in the first person, with each chapterfrom another person's point of view. It's written in the vernacular,exactly as the people themselves would talk. Every character in thebook is black and Parks really captures the feeling of poor black peopleliving in the south in the early 1960s.I found this book pretty entertaining, but hardly engrossing. A coupleof plot twists along the way and a conclusion you aren't led to expectat the end. It was a nice change of pace and I enjoyed it. A pleasantway to pass a couple of summer afternoons.
    • 1/5
      I didn't care about any of the characters.
    • 4/5
      Interesting portrayal of life of black family in the south in the 60's. Written from many points of view, which was sometimes difficult to keep in mind, but did add interest to the story. Motives of characters sometimes difficult for me to understand.