Child Bride

May 15, 2020
In 1950s Louisiana, an African American teenager must leave childhood and her ambitions behind when she marries an older man in this coming-of-age novel about the black diaspora, resilience, and courage. Until the age of 16, Nell Jones' home is a ramshackle house on "one of many small hog and pecan farms owned and worked by the descendants of sharecroppers and former slaves." There, her mother teaches her how to cook, her father shows her how to use a pocket knife to peel an apple in one long spiral strip, and her oldest brother, Robert, tells her how to find the North Star in the night sky. Most of all, Nell loves school, where Miss Parker, a teacher, nurtures her naturally inquisitive nature and her passion for reading. Cocooned in the love of her family and her small community, Nell knows little of the outside world, but she later realizes, "for black southerners racism lived in the air we breathed." Nell is still an innocent teen when Henry Bight comes to claim her as his bride and take her north to Boston. There, her dreams of becoming a teacher quickly evaporate in the face of Henry's possessiveness and insistence that she have as many babies as possible. A few years later, Nell is the mother of three young children, a lonely and unfulfilled woman tied to an angry and controlling man. But she does possess an inner strength and stubbornness that will not allow her to simply abandon her dreams. Turner's warm and personal narrative brings to life the vigor and interdependence of black communities in both the South and the North of the mid-20th century. Nell is an appealing, penetrating, and spirited protagonist whose struggles are relatable to all readers, but much of the power of her story lies in the fact that it is grounded in African American society. White characters make an occasional appearance, but the tale is centered on the black experience. It is disappointing that Nell's eventual fate seems to rely heavily on the trappings of class privilege, but the book as a whole is uplifting and dynamic. A captivating story of a strong African American woman who pursues her dreams.

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