A scarlet sin is a blab-mouth thing.

Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
Scarlet Sister Mary is the story of how one woman took life by the reins after it tried to throw her a hurricane. Mary, the protagonist, is a Gullah woman who was born and lives her entire life on Blue Brook Plantation in Georgia. The Gullah people are no longer slaves, but inhabit the plantation as their own, leading intricate and interwoven lives within its acreage.
   Mary's parents died early, so she is raised by Maum Hannah and Budda Ben, an elderly brother and sister. Mary grows up in a deeply Christian space, but falls for a man who is a little 'wild' for Maum Hannah's taste, named July. July has a twin, June, whom Mary also loves (I know, TRICKSY!) and before she gets married to July, Mary realizes she is pregnant, much to Maum Hannah's dismay. She gives birth to a child, Unex (for Unexpected, get it? ;)) and things are decent for a little while, but pretty soon July starts to itch for something more, and after he hits Mary once in a rage, things are permanently changed between them. He stays a little after that, basically using Mary as a cook and cleaningwoman to do his bidding, but eventually he runs off with another woman, Cinder.
   Mary initially blames Cinder for drawing July away, but with time, she comes to realize that July never had staying in his blood. Instead of taking a new husband, Mary opts to engage in relations with any men she likes, and racks up quite a brood of offspring. July eventually tries to return, but Mary denounces him. Mary has another child, at which time her oldest daughter, Seraphine, also has a secret child (whoopsies!) and Unex returns home from being away and he, too, brings a child with him, the mother having died shortly after she gave birth. Unex unfortunately has the same thing that plagued his wife, and he dies soon after. Mary is full of grief and overwhelmed (naturally) by the extensive amount of babies she now has to raise, but she reaches out to Maum Hannah and rejoins the church, at least to be a part of the community and have kinship with the rest of the Gullah people.
   In the final scene, the local charms-maker offers to take back the magic man-catching charm he made for her after July left, but Mary winks at him and says she's just going to hang on to it for a little while longer.
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

In a fascinating (and confusing to untangle and unpack) plot twist, this book was written not by a Gullah woman, but by a white woman named Julia Peterkin. I don't know if I've ever read a book that entirely concerns a different race than the author, but where the author actually places herself directly into that racial narrative, as opposed to observing/commenting on it (generally in a negative way). I wasn't sure how to feel about it, and I wasn't sure how I should feel about her writing this book so eloquently about an incredible culture and group of people who were not hers to claim.

As you know if you're a consistent reader of this blob, I do not like to read things about the book before I've read the book itself. Occasionally I allow myself to do some research after the fact. I went back and read the introduction after I finished this book, largely to continue to marinate on the above quandary. 

Here's a quote from A.J. Verdelle, an African-American novelist, that I liked:

"Early in my experience of Scarlet Sister Mary, I presumed the book a slave novel because that's how it reads: the entire cast of characters is black, they live in the "Quarters" of a large plantation. They live in their own company - which is to say they seem segregated ... As a story, Scarlet Sister Mary seemed so authentic, so true to its subject, that it was a mild shock to learn later that its author was white. This realization and the questions it provoked continue to bemuse me, even from the mine of my memory."

In part, I wondered how Peterkin would know so much about the Gullah people, from the way they talk to the food they ate to the way their surroundings were a kind of extension of themself. In doing a little research, and reading more of the introduction, I found that Peterkin had a Gullah woman as a surrogate mother after her mother died: 

"From her 'Mauma', she learned the vocabulary, the speech patterns, and the value system of the Gullahs who populated the low country. Her early vocabulary incorporated Gullah dialect. For a time in her childhood, she considered that standard English was 'good-behavior' English."

I still don't really know what I think about the construct, but I will say this - I think the book is a beautiful novel, and really eloquently crafted. I can see why it won the Pulitzer. Here are a few more thoughts, in no real order:

On the Gullah way of life

• "The lack of roads and bridges afforded them little contact with the outside world, and so, instead of going away to seek new fortunes, new advantages, easier work and more money, they kept faithful to the old life, contented with old ways and beliefs, holding fast to old traditions and superstitions."

I was really taken by the insularity of the Gullah culture. When I visited my friend's mom in Georgia, we went on a tour of Savannah, and even learned that much of Savannah is built on and around Gullah graveyards. In a strange way, and obviously moving beyond the whole 'they were only here because we kidnapped and enslaved them' premise, the Gullah reminded me of the Amish. Keeping to themselves, nurturing sacred traditions, preserving a piece of history forever in the simple act of living.

Christianity/slave culture -- in comparison with Underground Railroad
I happened to read 'Underground Railroad' by Colson Whitehead, just after I read this book. It wasn't originally on the blob list, but it caught my eye, and my friends convinced me I should blob on it, since I read it, and since it was so good. So that's coming up next - get amped! Anyway, it was interesting to read the kind of hyper-Christian space in the Gullah life, in comparison with Cora's thoughtful and intentional atheism. Again, complex feelings all around (especially writing this blob on a Sunday and with church bells chiming in the background) so I'm just putting this one out there as something to mull over, no specific intentions or definitions of 'right' or 'wrong'. 

Safe space for some, unsafe space for others -- not even a safe space for women if you look through 21st century lens
I was talking to a kindred spirit lately, and we were discussing the fact that so often, in creating a space that it safe for one group of people, the space becomes unsafe for another group of people. I love this idea of a space that is truly safe - for LGBT folk, for people of color, for women, for any group historically oppressed and repressed and villainized by people and institutions - but sometimes I wonder if that's just a pipe dream. 

SIDEBAR: I just looked up pipe dream to see where that saying comes from. Does anyone know? Points if you do! It's apparently from the early 19th century, in reference to a dream experienced when smoking an opium pipe. Who knew?! It's kind of perfect, given that Mary begins to smoke a pipe when she's a little older and after July leaves, and it's an amazing statement of independence/owning a traditionally masculine object/habit. 

Aaaaand, we're back. Anyway, I thought about this a lot, in that the book was in some ways a safe space for the Gullah (though you could argue that it's not because she's not Gullah and she's appropriating them), but also in other ways a really unsafe space for women. There were lots of times where I looked at it from a 21st century feminist lens and thought, oh NO. Definitely NOT. But in other ways, Mary was really forward-thinking and badass. Color me confused. 

Possum for supper
Need I say more? They eat it. I mean, I'm SURE it's probably not so bad, and possums scare the heck out of me, so I'm not SAD that someone is killing them and eating them, but I don't think you could make me come to the table if you led off with, "Come on down, it's time for POSSUM!" Apparently my grandmother could really make squirrel tasty though, or at least that's the legend. ;)

On killing Cinder

• "I'd like to kill Cinder, Daddy [Cudjoe] - kill em dead. If you gi me a pizen I'll feed it to em till e is stone dead."

Lolololololz. This was one of my favorite lines. Although I felt that Mary's hatred for Cinder was mostly misplaced, given that July was a worthless jerk well before and after he ran off with Cinder, I did enjoy Mary's desire for revenge when she went to visit the charms-maker. It also reminded me for some reason of this line from 'My Fair Lady' - 'Ay say, them 'as pinched it, dun er in!'

Staying when July leaves
When July initially leaves, it's hard to comprehend why Mary would stay put, rather than just trying to start anew. Here's her description of why she can't:

• "If she had the heart, she would go away and leave everything, everybody. She could find work of some kind in the town, and yet, this was home. She had known no other place in her life. The very earth here was a part of herself, and it held her so fast that she could never leave it, no matter what came."

The tie to the land was so deep, and still is, for the Gullah: 

"Because of a period of relative isolation from whites while working on large plantations in rural areas, the Africans, drawn from a variety of Central and West African ethnic groups, developed a creole culture that has preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage from various peoples; in addition, they absorbed new influences from the region." 

Recalled to life
I love the way this book sort of takes 'The Scarlet Letter' and flips it on its head - Mary knows that she is an outsider, but she claims it, and she revels in it: 

• "She was able to laugh and dance and sing again, her flesh had got back its old smoothness, her old sadness and weariness and bitterness were left behind. Thank God, she knew men at last, and she knew that not one of them is worth a drop of water that drains out of a woman's eye."

On Keepsie learning to read
Keepsie is one of Mary's younger children, and she has mixed feelings about him learning to read, in large part because it represents whiteness, and a fear and danger that comes with that. I love this line of hers: 

• "Instead of reading all the time out of books and papers covered with printed words, he would do better to learn how to read other things: sunrises, moons, sunsets, clouds and stars, faces and eyes. Everything has its way of speaking and telling things worth knowing."

Readers, what can you read, aside from books? I think I can read children's faces, and bread almost baked, and friends' emotions. 

What child is this?
One of my favorite scenes in the book is when Seraphine has a child but then tries to pass it off like it just appeared in the house, since Mary had given birth to another child the same day. Here's the exchange between Maum Hannah and Mary:

"I been catchin' chillen all dese years. I know I ain' never caught one off de naked flo' befo in my life. Who dat put em on de flo'? Must be somebody."
  "I know e ain' me. No, Jedus. When I birth chillen, I know it."

Referents and Reverberations
A few moments that put me in mind of other works I've read:

Maum Hannah, to Mary, on spending time with July alone at night, and what comes of that: 
"Company in de dark don' do, gal. Company in de dark don' do."

This line cracked me up (even though Maum Hannah is Right, of course! ;)) and reminded me of two other moments:

(1) This line about Anne's burgeoning courtship with Peter in the annex, said by VanDaan and Dussel:

• Is it suitable for young gentlemen to receive young girls in semidarkness?

and (2) this moment from 'The Bell Jar' with Esther: Reminded me of this moment with Esther:

• When Constantin asked if I would like to come up to his apartment to hear some balalaika records I smiled to myself. My mother had always told me never under any circumstances to go with a man to a man's rooms after an evening out, it could mean only the one thing. 'I am very fond of balalaika music,' I said."

I can just see them now, Esther's mother and Maum Hannah and VanDaan and Dussel, waggling their fingers at Esther and Mary and Anne. ;)

And this line, about trees:

"The forest was the oldest thing on the plantation except the earth itself."
Reminded me of the way that Ambelin Kwaymullina talks about the tuarts in the Tribe series. 

• "The Tribe had moved out of the caves about a week ago, more than willing to exchange the cold nights and mornings of early spring for open sky above our heads and the lemony scent of the tuarts in bloom.

New terminology I learned:
scuppernong - species of grape native to the Southern U.S.


bull bats - common nighthawk (nickname) - pictured left - it really DOES look like a bat!

jessamines -  any of numerous often climbing shrubs (genus Jasminum) of the olive family that usually have extremely fragrant flowers - pictured right

bullace - a thorny shrub or small tree of the rose family that bears purple-black fruits. It is a wild plum, of which the damson is the cultivated form.

Portulacas -  the type genus of the flowering plant family Portulacaceae, comprising about 40-100 species found in the tropics and warm temperate regions. They are also known as moss roses.

A few of my favorite lines

• Life fills and enfolds everything here, never overlooking in the press of work to be done the smallest or most insignificant creature, and silently, with weariless patience and diligence, strange miracles are wrought as youth rises out of decay and death becomes only another beginning.

• A full belly makes a brave heart. so true!

• What you done pure cuts my heart-strings. Maum Hannah, on finding out "July and May-e 'is been a-havin sin'"

• Dis is gwine to be a far-roamin child.

• Lightning cracked sharp whips overhead and ran crooked white fingers through the cracks of the house.

• Evening had come with a crimson sky and a clear thin wishing moon hung in the west.

• God knew he was the only heart-child she had.

• Her misery was not a garment that could be shed. It was mixed in her flesh and blood.

I'll leave you with one final line: 

"This last year had been a bad-luck year."

Here's hoping you have a full belly, a brave heart, thin wishing moons in the west, and nothing to cut your heart-strings in a good-luck year. I'm off to enjoy the rest of this beautiful April day, and since I've already finished 'Rabbit, Run', I may take a day off from reading books and read the sunset instead.