1,001 Novels: A Library of America
Corregidora (1975)
by Gayl Jones
Lexington, Kentucky
Kentucky: 4/16
Gayl Jones was a Toni Morrison protege in the 1970's who disappeared for over 20 years before recently returning with new work. Corregidora was her fiery debut, about a Lexington, Kentucky jazz singer with a tangled personal history (slave owning great-grandfather who fathered her great grandmother AND grandmother. Written decades before the phrase "intergenerational trauma" became common, Corregidora is nothing but an expression of the theme. Surely the best book in the Kentucky chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America- arguably a classic of 1970's American lit. Something I've noticed is that precious few works of art dealing with this subject actually take place INSIDE the mine or factory, rather what you get is the impact the work has on the workers and their families outside the work environment. I'd be more interested to read a novel about what it is like to work in a coal mine then what the experience is like seeing one's dad work in the mine, which is the situation here.
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