Scan barcode
A review by mochagirl
Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin
5.0
Kim McLarin has penned a wonderfully introspective novel that examines the innermost thoughts of a young, BUPPIE woman facing the pressures of marriage, motherhood, and a stalled career in academia. Grace Jefferson is a highly educated, driven wife and mother of two toddlers who has recently moved to the Boston suburbs. In between jobs, she finds her life as a stay-at-home mom to be stifling and demanding. Loving her children but hating the demands and sacrifices of motherhood, she finds herself torn between the freedom and bravado embraced by her absentee grandmother, Royal Rae, and the security and comfort bestowed by her mother, Mattie Mae.
Through carefully laid flashbacks, the author paints a vivid picture of Royal Rae's impoverished beginnings as a Mississippi sharecropper and her thirst for the lush life that causes her to leave her children in the care of "Aunt" Eba as she gallivants from town to town and man to man. Mattie Mae, Royal Rae's oldest child, seemingly suffers the deepest from her wayward mother's abandonment and strives to earn her mother's love and attention for the rest of her life. Vowing not to be like her mother, Mattie Mae sacrifices love, education, career, and ultimately her life for her own children only to smother them with laments of martyrdom. The parenting techniques of these two very different women leave Grace in emotional turmoil filled with anxiety and confusion. She searches to find a balance amid plots of escape from marriage and motherhood. Leaning on her background in psychology, her latest attempt to cope is to find her long lost free-spirited grandmother, Royal Rae, to get some answers to long avoided questions and closure on hidden family secrets.
Amid the backdrop of the eras they were born, McLarin uses these three women to illustrate how the social constraints (gender, race, economics, education, etc.) and psychological stresses could affect their offspring and the subsequent generations that follow. She obviously has done her homework because she layers complex factors such as the effects of slavery, labor laws, civil rights, segregation, legalization of abortion, birth control, etc. along with apt sociological observations and pertinent psychological theories to weave a compelling and timely novel. Her writing and characters are intelligent, poignant, and real; their emotions are raw and believable. This is a mature and moving work of literary fiction. I loved this book and look forward to the author's next release! Well done!
Through carefully laid flashbacks, the author paints a vivid picture of Royal Rae's impoverished beginnings as a Mississippi sharecropper and her thirst for the lush life that causes her to leave her children in the care of "Aunt" Eba as she gallivants from town to town and man to man. Mattie Mae, Royal Rae's oldest child, seemingly suffers the deepest from her wayward mother's abandonment and strives to earn her mother's love and attention for the rest of her life. Vowing not to be like her mother, Mattie Mae sacrifices love, education, career, and ultimately her life for her own children only to smother them with laments of martyrdom. The parenting techniques of these two very different women leave Grace in emotional turmoil filled with anxiety and confusion. She searches to find a balance amid plots of escape from marriage and motherhood. Leaning on her background in psychology, her latest attempt to cope is to find her long lost free-spirited grandmother, Royal Rae, to get some answers to long avoided questions and closure on hidden family secrets.
Amid the backdrop of the eras they were born, McLarin uses these three women to illustrate how the social constraints (gender, race, economics, education, etc.) and psychological stresses could affect their offspring and the subsequent generations that follow. She obviously has done her homework because she layers complex factors such as the effects of slavery, labor laws, civil rights, segregation, legalization of abortion, birth control, etc. along with apt sociological observations and pertinent psychological theories to weave a compelling and timely novel. Her writing and characters are intelligent, poignant, and real; their emotions are raw and believable. This is a mature and moving work of literary fiction. I loved this book and look forward to the author's next release! Well done!