The Darkest Child

A new edition of this award-winning modern classic, with an introduction by Tayari Jones ( An American Marriage ), an excerpt from the never before seen follow-up, and discussion guide. Pakersfield, Georgia, 1958: Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn is the sixth of ten fatherless siblings. She is the darkest-skinned among them and therefore the ugliest in her mother, Rozelle’s, estimation, but she’s also the brightest. Rozelle--beautiful, charismatic, and light-skinned--exercises a violent hold over her children. Fearing abandonment, she pulls them from school at the age of twelve and sends them to earn their keep for the household, whether in domestic service, in the fields, or at “the farmhouse” on the edge of town, where Rozelle beds local men for money. But Tangy Mae has been selected to be part of the first integrated class at a nearby white high school. She has a chance to change her life, but can she break from Rozelle’s grasp without ruinous--even fatal--consequences?

Praise for The Darkest Child

**Winner of the Black Caucus of the ALA Award
Nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
 
“The Darkest Child is a great gift, a timeless American treasure.”
—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage 

"A well-written story that underscores the power of education, The Darkest Child paints a stark picture about life and opportunity for a young black girl in 1950s Jim Crow Georgia. This book brings up timely conversations—the characters haunted me long after I finished reading.”
—Octavia Spencer, Academy Award–winning actress from The Help and Hidden Figures

“Filled with grand plot events and clearly identifiable villains and victims . . . lush with detail and captivating with its story of racial tension and family violence.”
—The Washington Post Book World

 “Phillips writes with a no-nonsense elegance . . . As a vision of African-American life, The Darkest Child is one of the harshest novels to arrive in many years . . . [Phillips] buttresses those harsh episodes with a depth of characterization worthy of Chekhov, pitch-perfect dialogue, and a profound knowledge of the segregated South in the ’50s.”
—The New Leader
 
“[An] exceptional debut novel . . . [Has] a depth and dimension not often characteristic of a first novel.”
—Library Journal, Starred Review
 
 “Bold memorable characters and enough drama to keep you up all night wondering what can possibly happen next.”
—The Black Book Review
 
 “Evil’s regenerative powers and one girl’s fierce resistance . . . A book that deserves a wide audience.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
“Horrific and gripping.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
 
“Heart-rending.”
—Dallas Morning News

“A fierce and bitter story, told with striking authority. Delores Phillips has created a family and a town rich with resonant voices, all of them caught up in struggles both personal and public, and a mother so wildly commanding she earns a place beside some of the great mad women who embitter the lives of the children who love them.”
—Rosellen Brown, author of Half a Heart and *Civil Wars

*“[A] searing sebut . . . Using a cast of powerfully drawn characters, Phillips captures life in a town that serves as a microcosm of a world on the brink of change.”
*—Publishers Weekly
*
“A grim tale, set in the dying days of segregation, about one young woman’s struggle to escape her past, her mother, and her duties . . . Phillips writes vividly.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A brilliant, unnerving, memorable debut.”
—Caribbean Life

Auteur

Delores Phillips; Introduction by Tayari Jones

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One
Pakersfield, Georgia 1958

Mama washed the last dish she ever intended to wash. I alone witnessed the event, in silence. It was on a Friday—a school day—but instead of sitting in a classroom, I was standing in unfamiliar surroundings, the home of my mother’s employers, stunned by the wealth around me. As I watched my mother through unwavering peripheral vision, something in her glances at me seemed to say, “Tangy Mae, this will be your life. Grab an apron and enjoy it.”
     Domestic servitude was not what I desired for myself, but she had only to speak and I would do anything she asked. It was my obligation to obey her, though I did not want to be like my elder brothers, Harvey and Sam, who seemed to breathe at our mother’s command. They were men, and so their lack of initiative disturbed me, although I knew they could not just leave our mother’s house. Departure required consideration of consequences and a carefully planned escape.
     At the age of thirty-five, our mother was tall and slender with a head of thick reddish-brown hair. Her face, with its cream-colored skin and high cheekbones beneath dark gray eyes, was set off by a gleaming white smile accented by dimples. I thought she was beautiful, despite my acquaintance with the demon that hibernated beneath the elegant surface.
     She had worked seven years cleaning house for the Munford family. Now she stood at their kitchen sink, holding a dish under running water longer than necessary before handing it to me to wipe. She finally dried her hands on her apron, took a seat at the table, and waited for her pain to subside. She had spent most of the day complaining of her misery while instructing me on the proper way to make a bed, scrub a floor, polish silverware, use a washing machine, and so on.
     According to Mama, her pain—something like gas—had begun during the wee hours of the morning. It balled up in her chest, rolled through her stomach, between her thighs, and into her knees. It did a slow dribble in her swollen ankles, then just like that—her finger snapped—it bounced back to her chest and started all over again, taking her breath away.
     On the table, beneath a crystal saltshaker, was an envelope. She picked it up and fanned it before her face. “Fifteen dollars,” she said indignantly. “I don’t care what I do ’round here, it’s always the same fifteen dollars. Never mind that I stayed late on Tuesday evening when Mister Frederick’s mother came for dinner. Never mind that I walked to the Colonial for flour that Miss Arlisa forgot to pick up. Week in, week out, always the same fifteen dollars.”
     She removed the bills and tucked them inside the pocket of her dress, then slid the envelope and a pencil across the table. “Sit down,” she said, “I want you to write me a note to Miss Arlisa.”
     My obedience, as always, was swift.
     “Dear Miss Arlisa,” Mama started as soon as I was seated across from her. “Tangy Mae can do just as good a job as I can. She is my child and I learned her good. She can start work for you on Monday. I will be dead.”
     My hand trembled slightly, but I wrote the note exactly as she dictated. She snatched the envelope from the table, scanned the words, then passed it back to me. “Sign it, Rozelle Quinn,” she said. “Miss Arlisa probably won’t even know who that is. All they k…