Mama Day

What a stunning book this is! The moment I finished it, I felt like I just needed to breathe and rest, and let the novel lie there in my thoughts for a while. It is a book which I found captivating, emotional and yet I can't describe it as a rollercoaster. It is a novel which asks you to take your time, to live with the characters at perhaps a slower pace, because this is a novel set in a world where everything just needs to slow down.

Mama Day is mostly set on the island of Willow Springs, which is in the waterway to the Atlantic ocean between Georgia and South Carolina. The land belongs to the residents of Willow Springs having been bequeathed to them by the island's former slave owner, and the former slaves in turn being free people on the island. It is connected to the mainland and is 'part' of the United States, and yet it is not part of either the state of Georgia or North Carolina. In many respects it exists as a micro-state, it has utilities like electricity and telephone, yet it is also poor and a simpler, yet harder life. The book is set in the 1980's but there is always the sense that Willow Springs is a couple of decades behind.

The book is mostly from the perspectives of multiple points of view. Two elderly sisters Abigail and Miranda, known as Mama Day whose ancestry traces back to the woman who liberated the island are the heart of the novel on Willow Springs. Abigail's granddaughter Ophelia (aka Cocoa and Baby Girl) and her husband George are two other major points of view as we follow the story of their marriage and their return / coming to Willow Springs.

The characterisation is superb. Abigail and Mama are beautifully portrayed. Mama is the elderly healer and midwife on the island, in an uneasy recognition with the mainland doctor and the on island medical charlatan. She's also the informal matriarch of the island as characters come to her for help with things. Mama is the one with the sharp tongue and a no-nonsense attitude who doesn't take any disrespect from anybody, whilst Abigail is the nurturing, kindly grandmother whose love pours out of everything she does. That probably feels like a disservice to Mama because it is evident everything she does is guided by love, she's just going to share it a different way.

The dialogue between these two ladies especially is so immersive. I don't know how people from the Southern US states really speak but they sound so authentic as a pair of elderly ladies whose wit and tongue hasn't slowed down. Quite often, I found myself smiling or laughing at the interplay between them and the other characters in the novel.

I guess Mama as a character is the novel's hook, even though the novel is not really about her. On Willow Springs magic exists, and it is magic that can create and help, or cause harm. There is much about the need to believe in order to understand. And yet, all the magic can be rationalised away with a scientific explanation. Is Mama Day a herbalist, a storyteller, a folklorist? Is there magic of the ancestors travelling down the generations. There is an alignment between a deep knowledge of the land and environment and superstition and tradition.

The novel wasn't marketed as fantasy, or magical realism or speculative in any way, and to a large extent it isn't and didn't need to be. For in this novel, the magic is in the ordinary, the everyday, the way things are just done around here. It is matter of fact. There are certain scenes in the book where characters do things and as a paragraph it just seems like an action anyone could do, but in the context of the book it is infused with meaning and understanding and significance - it is though everything happens for a reason.

Of course in this novel, I haven't mentioned Ophelia and George much. The novel is their story, of them meeting in New York, falling in love, getting married and as per tradition eventually visiting Willow Springs. Much of the book is them speaking to each other about their life together, as if looking back and remembering. It is like a long love letter of explanation and justification.

Other readers mileage may vary, but I didn't particularly like either of them, and I don't believe either of them loved the other. I think they both needed something, someone, but they weren't it. It is a tale of 'star crossed lovers' - indeed there are Shakespearean references everywhere. Ophelia from Hamlet, Ophelia and George read King Lear, and of course Mama / Miranda weaving magic on an island beset by storms like The Tempest. Both George and Ophelia do things that make me not like them. George at times behaves in quite a misogynistic way and there are undercurrents of control and examples of domestic violence from both of them. In many respects it is the story of a failing and failed marriage. Even though I didn't particularly care for them it is a testament to the strength of the writing that I was still so thoroughly engaged in their story. The thread of communication and needing to communicate in a marriage is so strong here.

The supporting characters add a richness to the story. On the face some seem caricatures but they all feel totally natural in the context of the novel. It's a novel that is so grounded, so comfortable in it's own world. I laughed, I felt sad, I felt touched and was rewarded with the gift of reading a beautifully written book.