Dear God…

Excerpt from The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

This is an excerpt from the book The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

DEAR GOD,

Nettie here with us. She run way from home. She say she hate to leave our stepma, but she had to git out, maybe fine help for the other little ones. The boys be alright, she say. They can stay out his way. When they git big they gon fight him.

Maybe kill, I say.

How is it with you and Mr. ____? she ast. But she got eyes. He still like her. In the evening he come out on the porch in his Sunday best. She be sitting there with me shelling peas or helping the children with they spelling. Helping me with spelling and everything else she think I need to know. No matter what happen, Nettie steady try to teach me what go on in the world. And she a good teacher too. It nearly kill me to think she might marry somebody like Mr. _____ or wind up in some white lady kitchen. All day she read, she study, she practice her handwriting, and try to git us to think. Most days I feel too tired to think. But Patient her middle name.

Mr. _____ children all bright but they mean. They say Celie, I want dis. Celie I want dat. Our Mama let us have it. He don’t say nothing. They try to get his tention, he hide hind a puff of smoke.

Don’t let them run over you, Nettie say. You got to let them know who got the upper hand.

They got it, I say.

But she keep on, You got to fight. You got to fight.

But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.

That’s a real pretty dress you got on, he say to Nettie.

She say, Thank you.

Them shoes look just right.

She say, Thank you.

Your skin. Your hair. Your teefs. Everyday it something else to make miration over.

First she smile a little. Then she frown. Then she don’t look no special way at all. She just stick close to me. She tell me, Your skin. Your hair, Your teefs. He try to give her a compliment, she pass it on to me. After while I git to feeling pretty cute.

Soon he stop. He say one night in bed, Well, us done help Nettie all we can. Now she got to go.

Where she gon go? I ast.

I don’t care, he say.

I tell Nettie the next morning. Stead of being mad, she glad to go. Say she hate to leave me is all. Us fall on each other neck when she say that.

I sure hate to leave you here with these rotten children, she say. Not to mention with Mr. ____. It’s like seeing you buried, she say.

It’s worse than that, I think. If I was buried, I wouldn’t have to work. But I just say, Never mine, never mine, long as I can spell G-o-d I got somebody along.

But I only got one thing to give her, the name of

Reverend Mr. ____. I tell her to ast for his wife. That maybe she would help. She the only woman I even seen with money.

I say, Write.

She say, What?

I say, Write.

She say, Nothing but death can keep me from it.

She never write.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

The Color Purple – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker’s iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book.

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.

The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker’s epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

As seen in the description above, if there are topics you prefer not to read about, you may want to check out the trigger warnings before reading this book.

Copyright © 1982 by Kahlil Gibran.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Creativity was in her

This is a quote from the book Meridian by Alice Walker.

Quote by Alice Walker, “Creativity was in her, but it was refused expression. It was all deliberate. A war against those to whom she could not express her anger or shout, ‘It’s not fair!’”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Meridian – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

“The second novel written by Alice Walker, preceding The Color Purple is a heartfelt and moving story about one woman’s personal revolution as she joins the Civil Rights Movement. Set in the American South in the 1960s it follows Meridian Hill, a courageous young woman who dedicates herself heart and soul to her civil rights work, touching the lives of those around her even as her own health begins to deteriorate. Hers is a lonely battle, but it is one she will not abandon, whatever the costs. This is classic Alice Walker, beautifully written, intense and passionate.”

Copyright © 1976 by Alice Walker.

More details can be found on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Meridian by Alice Walker

Photo by Ergita Sela | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Meridian by Alice Walker.

She could never forgive her community, her family, his family, the whole world, for not warning her against children. For a year she had seen some increase in her happiness: She enjoyed joining her body to her husband’s in sex, and enjoyed having someone with whom to share the minute occurrences of her day. But in her first pregnancy she became distracted from who she was. As divided in her mind as her body was divided, between what part was herself and what part was not. Her frail independence gave way to the pressures of motherhood and she learned – much to her horror and amazement – that she was not even allowed to be resentful that she was “caught.” That her personal life was over. There was no one she could cry out to and say “It’s not fair!” And in understanding this, she understood a look she saw in the other women’s eyes. The mysterious inner life that she had imagined gave them a secret joy was simply a full knowledge of the fact that they were dead, living just enough for their children. They, too, had found no one to whom to shout “It’s not fair!” The women who now had eight, twelve, fifteen children: People made jokes about them, but she could feel now that such jokes were obscene; it was like laughing at a person who is being buried alive, walled away from her own life, brick by brick.

That was the beginning of her abstraction. When her children were older and not so burdensome – and they were burdens to her always – she wanted to teach again but could not pass the new exams and did not like the new generation of students. In fact, she discovered she had no interest in children, until they were adults; then she would pretend to those she met that she remembered them. She learned to make paper flowers and prayer pillows from tiny scraps of cloth, because she needed to feel something in her hands. She never learned to cook well, she never learned to braid hair prettily or to be in any other way creative in her home. She could have done so, if she had wanted to. Creativity was in her, but it was refused expression. It was all deliberate. A war against those to whom she could not express her anger or shout, “It’s not fair!”

With her own daughter she certainly said things she herself did not believe. She refused help and seemed, to Meridian, never to understand. But all along she understood perfectly.

It was for stealing her mother’s serenity, for shattering her mother’s emerging self, that Meridian felt guilty from the very first, though she was unable to understand how this could possibly be her fault.

When her mother asked, without glancing at her, “Have you stolen anything?” a stillness fell over Meridian and for seconds she could not move. The question literally stopped her in her tracks.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Meridian – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

“The second novel written by Alice Walker, preceding The Color Purple is a heartfelt and moving story about one woman’s personal revolution as she joins the Civil Rights Movement. Set in the American South in the 1960s it follows Meridian Hill, a courageous young woman who dedicates herself heart and soul to her civil rights work, touching the lives of those around her even as her own health begins to deteriorate. Hers is a lonely battle, but it is one she will not abandon, whatever the costs. This is classic Alice Walker, beautifully written, intense and passionate.”

Copyright © 1976 by Alice Walker.

More details can be found on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

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