1,001 Novels: A Library of America
Jealous-Hearted Me (1997)
by Nancy Huddleston Packer
Montgomery, Alabama
Alabama: 3/18
Finally, a novel from the deep south where no one is murdered by a hateful mob. On the other hand, it is also a situation with no black characters, and so thoroughly de-racinated that I had to Google the author to figure out if the characters were supposed to be white or black. This is a book of interconnected short stories about a woman and her relationship with her mother. To put it simply, the daughter is obsessed with the mother and almost every story is focused on how the daughter yearns to spend more time with her elderly mom, while the mom goes about her business and lives her life. Not for the first, time Jealous-Hearted Me gave me occasion to reflect on how sad the lives of those lived entirely within the confines of family appear on the printed page. I'm not commenting on people who actually live this way, just as it appears as a topic/subject for art, specifically the novel.
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