The Darkest Child
Jan 2005 · Soho Press
4.7star
90 reviewsreport
Ebook
462
Pages
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About this ebook
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?
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?
Ratings and reviews
4.7
90 reviews
John Marshall
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December 27, 2024
I could not stop reading this book. I have read hundreds of novels. Many of them had nightmarish characters. Very few, if any, come close to Rozelle Quinn. Tangy Quinn, the main character, is so smart, pitiful, strong, weak, innocent, abused, and loving, that it hurts to keep reading; however, you can't stop. This book is remarkable! Dark - with hints of light; however, it stands firm in unapologetically tackling, racism, sexism, colorism, classism, mental health, self-doubt, self-hate, self-love, and self-discovery. Delores Phillips, although deceased, leaves us with a book that makes you feel 'some-kind-of-way'. I am still out of breath!
jnai mcknight
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March 19, 2023
This book had me in tears a few times. It's heart breaking but tells the best story through the eyes of a girl whose mother is extremely abusive.
Theresa Johnson
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February 4, 2023
I absolutely did not like this book although it is very realistic in its depiction of Jim Crow South and the depravity of a very toxic single mother of ten children it reads like a horror story and has no redemptive quality and leaves one feeling hopeless ,angry and sad.
About the author
Delores Phillips was born in Bartow County, Georgia in 1950, the second of four children. She graduated from Cleveland State University with a bachelor of arts in English and worked as a nurse at a state psychiatric hospital in Cleveland. Her work has appeared in Jean’s Journal, Black Times, and The Crisis. She passed away in 2014; The Darkest Child was her only novel.
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