Two Things Thursday #11

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1. The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips. Photo Credit: Tremaine L. Loadholt
2. Pictured Poem, “Mushy”. Created by Tremaine L. Loadholt

1. The Darkest Child . . . this book should have come with every type of trigger warning available, but it did not.

I cannot explain how emotionally charged I have gotten while thumbing through these pages. The author, Delores Phillips died without writing any more completed or finished works and we, as readers, cannot question her about WHY she decided to pen this particular tale.

The book is fiction, but it doesn’t feel like fiction. I’ve cried. I’ve gotten angry. I’ve had to read in passing moments to allow myself time to “heal” from the detriment and torture placed on the main characters (children) by their own mother.

It is a rollercoaster ride without a destination in sight, it seems, but it’s so enthralling that I must succeed in making it to the end.

I HIGHLY recommend this book, but I will say this . . . if you are an Empath, please prepare yourself for the pain you will feel, and give yourself time to digest this one. It is not meant to be rushed through at all. It is meant to be savored, dissected, understood, and applauded (if you make it to the end).

Here is a brief description of the book:

Set in Georgia in the 1950s, Delores Phillips’s debut historical novel, The Darkest Child (2005), follows thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn, an intelligent African American girl, as she battles to finish her education in the face of family tragedy, social upheaval, and her mother’s unthinkable abuse. Before her death in 2014, Phillips worked as a nurse in a Georgia facility that tends to abused women and children.

It is 1958, and Rozelle “Rosie” Quinn has just quit her housekeeping job. Although she is still considered a second-class citizen in Parkersfield, Georgia, she is light-skinned and beautiful. Rosie has always felt she deserved better. Tangy Mae, Rosie’s thirteen-year-old daughter, walks her home as Rosie moans in pain and announces to all the world she is dying.

Rosie is not dying, however, only having a baby—her tenth . . .

The Darkest Child, Super Summary

2. Mushy is the first poem about one of the characters from The Darkest Child. I am writing poems because this is how I move through things that bring pain to my doorstep.

I have written three poems so far for three different characters, and I know a few more will be birthed before I am done reading this book.

I understand Mushy and her need to get far away from her mother and also the need to NOT be like her, but try as she might to remove her, her mother is in her blood–she is her mother’s child.

And there is no running away from that. And really, that’s what hurts me the most about this character. You cannot run away from who you are–you’ll always come back to YOU.

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