March 2008 Book Club Selection

Even though we still haven't had our February book club meeting, my friend made her selection for March. It's THE DARKEST CHILD by Delores Phillips.

Summary: Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Yet everyone in her small Georgia town knows. Rozelle's ten children (by ten different daddies) are mostly light, too. They sleep on the floor in her drafty, rickety three-room shack and live in fear of her moods and temper. But they are all vital to her. They occupy the only world she rules and controls. They multiply her power in an otherwise cruel and uncaring universe.

Rozelle favors her light-skinned kids, but insists that they all love and obey her unquestioningly. Tangy Mae, thirteen, is her brightest but darkest-complected child. Tangy wants desperately to continue with her education. Shockingly, the highest court in the land has just ruled that Negroes may go to school with whites. Her mother, however, has other plans.

Rozelle wants her daughter to work, cleaning houses for whites, like she does, and accompany her to the "Farmhouse," where Rozelle earns extra money bedding men. Tangy Mae, she's decided, is of age. - soho press

I haven't done much research on this book so far except for reading the summary and the discussion questions. I think THE DARKEST CHILD looks fantastic and I can't wait to read it and talk about it with my friends. Please let me know if you have read this book or heard anything about it.