When I selected this novel, I was under the impression it would be about a woman with incredible strength and motherly love who faces an incredible obstacle in raising a special needs child.
That is what the book is about.
But I have to be honest I had a hard time getting into it. I always thought of myself as someone who enjoys historical fiction and maybe I still do, but there is something about this particular part of our nation’s history that makes me so uncomfortable – more likely ashamed – that I had a really hard time getting into the book.
First and foremost, it was really hard for me to get past the fact that Jewel, a woman raised in the mid-1900’s in Mississippi, refers to all Blacks as “niggers” for much of the book. I hate that word. Hate Hate HATE it.
I’m going to get into an introspective/confessional tangent here. So if you want to just know about the book, skip this section until you see “Back to Jewel” later on. I hate the word “nigger” for more reasons than because it is simply an ugly hateful word. I hate it because people I love who were born in the early 1900’s used it. While that was normal for their generation, I’m still ashamed that my relatives thought about all Blacks the way these loved ones did – that they were lower by nature, ignorant, not worthy to step into our homes and God FORBID they even think about taking one of “us” on a date. I hate the word, because people in my own generation used it all the time in high school. I went to a school that had an incredible amount of racial divisiveness – on both sides. I am ashamed to admit that I used the word once in high school. I am SO ashamed of that moment. I felt justified at the time. I was surrounded by people who classified Blacks as “Good Blacks” and “N’s.” I knew it was a hateful word but at the time felt self-righteous enough to believe that the word was simply the equivalent to “white trash” and meant “ignorant.” I even had a dictionary reference to back up that belief. (Later I noted the bias in the very dictionary I was using then, for modern dictionaries don’t simply define it as “ignorant” and instead emphasize the hatefulness and bigotry in the word at the very beginning of the definition. I still have that dictionary at home… it was published in the 1970’s). Instead of the "N" word I could have said, “you lazy stupid b****” or something equal to it, because that is exactly the right phrase for the incident that caused me to use the “N” word, but full of anger and feeling wronged, I used the word. As a result, I almost got beat up by 13 Black girls because of it. I got lucky and talked my way out of it, probably only because one of the 13 was able to look past the hateful word and see I had in fact been wronged and she called the whole thing even. But 18-19 years later I still have a dull ache inside when I think about that word and how I… used… IT.
I firmly believe after much personal development, increased awareness (not going so far as to claim full understanding) of the challenges of growing up Black in America by reading the works of fine authors like Richard Wright (Author of Black Boy and Native Son), Malcolm X’s Autobiography, and other works, that the word has no positive value. I decided in my early 20s that even having the word in my thoughts offered nothing positive. All it does is allow the mind to classify someone into that category whether intentionally or not. Niggers and Good Blacks. There is nothing positive in thinking that way, about any race. My daughter is being raised to have no concept of that word and when she does finally learn it, hopefully only through history books, she will learn how unacceptable it is to me.
So when I read books like Jewel that use the hateful word I get caught up in that shame, guilt and pain and I have a hard time seeing past it. It took me weeks to get into the book as a result. I’m surprised I didn’t just set it aside and pick another.
Back to Jewel. If you have similar issues with the “N” word, you might have a hard time getting through much of the book to what I consider the really good parts. But if you can, you may find it’s worth it. The book didn't blow me away. But it was enjoyable and had a good message.
Jewel, a quarter-bred Native-American and White woman in Mississippi starts her life several steps behind. Her parents are not together but have a strange relationship. Her grandmother, a well-to-do White woman hates her mother for choosing her half-bred father and running off with him. He, a drunk gambler, dies early on, and her mother dies soon after. She is sent to a boarding school. She wanders in her early years only able to really able rely on herself.
We learn of all of this through a series of flashbacks as Jewel finds herself pregnant and thinks back on her life. This is her sixth pregnancy and she is in her late 30s or early 40s. As is feared by many women today in that age group, she gives birth to a child with Down Syndrome, which at the time was called, “Mongoloid Idiot.” But at that time, it was a whole new concept and nothing she had ever seen before. When the doctor diagnoses her daughter she makes it clear she hates that term and refuses to use it for her daughter. Doctors recommend she institutionalize her daughter, Brenda Kay. She refuses. I understand the backdrop to the story – no matter how it might affect her family, she will never push her child away and leave her to wander through her life with no mother like she had to in her late childhood.
A pivotal relationship in the story is between Jewel and Cathedral, a childhood friend, who had a vision the child would be Jewel’s biggest struggle. I’m not sure I fully understand the impact of the storyline. Cathedral and Jewel have a falling out that I will let the reader discover. I don’t feel it is tied in well with the entire story or maybe I missed the whole point altogether. But what rang true to me was the pain and regret Jewel feels when she slaps Cathedral across the face is the same that I felt when I used the “N” word in high school and when I remember that. Perhaps my own cloudy memories while struggling through those parts of the book made me miss a major point there. If you’ve read it and you see the part that I'm missing, let me know.
The story goes on to talk about how life changes with Brenda Kay in the family. We get insight into what a mother of a special needs child is challenged with just to get through the day. We also see how the mothering she used to give all her other children falls by the wayside, how it affects her husband and their relationship, and how it brings the family close to financial ruin.
Yet Jewel has a single-minded determination to get her daughter the help she needs and moves the family all the way to California. This part is amazing and something I could identify with so this part of the book went much faster for me. Jewel’s focus on her daughter brings prosperity to her and her husband as well as their grown kids. One part that I particularly enjoyed of her time in California was when she was corrected and told that in California in the 1960s, the “N” word was not acceptable, and Blacks were referred to as “Colored.” (The respectful term of the time). The author gave us an interesting look at how a person raised in poverty and racism might have to struggle with seeing persons of color more prosperous than she, and what is interesting in the reading is we see she isn’t really “racist” – just ignorant herself.
Jewel’s and Brenda Kay’s transformation in California is extraordinary – Brenda Kay surpasses all expectations. And while Jewel's husband Lester was broken and lost in Mississippi, he finds his pride again and sense of purpose in California.
And then, just like a man, Lester feels compelled to go back and show all the people who thought he was a failure that he had made something of himself in California. He moves Jewel and Brenda Kay (the only family still in the house at the time) back “home.” And no one in the family fits in anymore. I thought this whole move was stupid – why do we (not just men) sometimes feel we have to go back and prove anything to people long in our past? If they didn’t value us enough in our worst times in our life, are they really worth being part of our lives anyway?
The one thing I liked about the return home was Jewel’s attempt to apologize to Cathedral. Again, like the sting I feel inside when I think about that incident in high school, Jewel doesn’t really get full resolution and neither does Cathedral. Sometimes some tresspasses are just too far across the line and never stop hurting. Maybe the hurt felt by the tresspasser is there to remind us to never do it again. It’s still good to try to set things right. But oftentimes trying to do so leaves both persons unsatisfied all the same.
Eventually Jewel and her husband find the answer about where their home really should be and what "home" really is to them. And they live the rest of their lives together. The book ends on a sad note – with Jewel making preparations for where Brenda Kay will live after she is gone. And we are left with this lesson: No matter what kind of incredible super mom we may try to be, the best we can do is to love our kids with all our hearts, give them the very best opportunity at life that we can give them, put their needs before our own, and eventually we have to know that it’s a part of life that they will have their own journey in the world. We have to give the very best of our spirit to them in this life so it will sustain their need for us when we have gone into the next life. I hope and pray that I’m doing a decent job of that myself.
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