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Reporter Mandy Davis: E-mail: mdavis@post-dispatch.com Phone: 314-340-8341
Having a feminine noun in the title should not immediately classify a book as a "chick book" the way some movies are automatically dubbed "chick flicks."
A good book is a good book for anyone, at least in theory. Still, "Getting Mother's Body," A Girl Could Stand Up" and "Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons" probably all will be thought of as books for women, by women.
Let's start with "Getting Mother's Body" by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks won a Pulitzer Prize last year for her play "Topdog/ Underdog," and she brings big talent to her debut novel.
Parks introduces her lead character, Billy Beede, in a most unflattering light. She's a pregnant teenager having sex in the backseat of a Ford Galaxie with a man she knows little about. Parks dares her readers to care about Billy and the motley crew of characters who surround her.
This African-American family living in west Texas in the early 1960s is dirt poor with no help in sight. When they get word that the grave of Billy's mother is about to be paved over in Arizona, some of the relatives start dreaming of digging her up to reclaim the jewels that were rumored to be buried with her.
It takes more than half the novel to get Billy, her aunt and uncle and her late mother's cross-dressing female lover on the road. Even then, it's a caravan made up of Billy driving a stolen truck -- with the cross-dressing lover close on her heels in a well-used hearse.
And while the whole group agrees on the surface that they just want to give Willa Mae a more peaceful resting place, all of them dream of the jewels that could make their lives...