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In Love & Trouble: Stories Of Black Women (2004)

In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women (2004)

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Rating
3.98 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0156028638 (ISBN13: 9780156028639)
Language
English
Publisher
mariner books

About book In Love & Trouble: Stories Of Black Women (2004)

We were assigned “Everyday Use” to read in English class, but the URL the professor provided was broken so I went to the library and checked out this book. I enjoyed the story so much that I thought I’d give the rest of the book a try. I don’t normally read African-American and/or (what could be considered) feminist fiction, but I really liked this collection. Yes, it is about white/black relations and how women suffer, not just from the cruelty of the male sex, but from the world around them. There was, however, something transcendental about the stories in the book that shed light on the human condition. In “Everyday Use” Walker not only criticize the back to Africa movement for overlooking the deeper meaning of the heritage created by their immediate ancestors, but also the lack of understanding on how that heritage was created and how to preserve that heritage. When an old woman meets Jesus walking down the road in “The Welcome Table,” her beauty is contrasted against the ugliness of the people who, just moments earlier, threw her out of a white church. And in “Really, Doesn’t Crime Pay?” the narrator exacts a quiet revenge while the reader decides who is worst: the lover who stole the one thing that held the narrator’s sanity together or the husband who is the source of her misery? In these stories and others, Walker shows her skill as a southern writer and can be counted among the greats like Faulkner and O’Connor. Highly recommended. After reading this book, I will probably try her other books in the near future.

In Love and Trouble was a really great collection of short stories by Alice Walker. Walker does a good job expressing the struggles many Black women from the South face. She discusses issues such as gaining the respect her characters desire, fulfilling hard-to-achieve dreams, and obtaining life's necessities.Of the thirteen stories, the one I enjoyed reading the most was "The Welcome Table", which was about an old woman who was physically thrown out of a white church by the white people who were there at that time. When the woman realizes she is out in the cold, she gets up and then sees God. She mindlessly walks around with Him and tells him of her struggles--how she's been working for white people her whole life, only to be oppressed by them. She tells Him of how she's faithful to him. While reading this, I thought about Night and how Elie had lost all his faith in God, whereas the old woman in "The Welcome Table" remained faithful and was still a strong believer in him.

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(FROM JACKET)Readers of Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" will find in these stories further evidence of her power to depict black women-women who vary greatly in background but are bound together by their vulnerability to life: Roselily, on her wedding day, surrounded by her four children, prays that a loveless marriage will bring her respectability; a young writer, exploited by both her lover and her husband, wreaks an ironic vengeance; a jealous wife, looking for her husband's mistress, finds a competitor she cannot fight; an old woman, thrown out of a white church, meets God on a highway. These are just a few of the seekers of dignity and love whom Alice Walker portrays in this astonishing collection.
—J

This is from one of the best authors ever, Alice Walker. I read this book in the late eighty's and was inspired by the collection's (of short stories) honesty of relationships and of women being vulnerable. I especially enjoyed the relationships between different women in this book of different races. Think, The Maids, and Women Of Brewster place that came along much later.Alice Walker is in a class with the likes of Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Flannery'Oconnor, so need I say more. Each one of these women has a protag that must learn to survive, no matter what the love situation might be and along with all the drama there is also humor, revenge, and revelations.Thank you Alice Walker for the time's spent in your literary presence and for your ability to draw us into those lives.
—Max Nightjar

A collection of thirteen of Walker's earliest stories (published in 1973) and shows her developing maturity and genius. Collections of short stories are always difficult for me to rate because the stories affect and engage me differently. I usually end up with a middle of the road rating, so have decided not to rate the overall book, but talk about stories that I liked. Each story is distinct. A couple felt more like character sketches that Walker would develop later in her novels. Many characters reflected Walker's own experience in the sixties civil rights movement. A few will haunt me. Early on we get "Really, Doesn't Crime Pay?", a story of a pampered, suppressed black woman artist--a cautionary tale for anyone who aspires to be a writer. Walker ends with a particularly sweet story of love, family, and community called "To Hell with Dying." In between we have a desperate mother trying to save her dying child in "Strong Horse Tea," an old woman who meets Jesus in "The Welcome Table," an obsessive wife searching for the woman who stole "Her Sweet Jerome," and a "Diary of an African Nun" reflects on the nun's choice to turn her back on the life-giving culture of people and turn to the sterile life of a bride of Christ. Altogether this was a short, but satisfying collection of compelling characters.
—Faith Justice

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