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A review by katerister
Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden
1.0
The more I think about it, the less I like this book. I don’t really “get it”, not sure what point was trying to be made.
The story starts out with the “evil soul” of a long dead black woman, “Esther the whore”, inhabiting the body of a young girl, named Doll. You never learn of why Esther’s spirit stayed on Earth or why she was evil. The only thing we know about her is that she loved men but they never loved her back - so she became a whore. And in the afterlife, she becomes an evil spirit… Um… okay.
The rest of the book traces the lives of the people living in Money, Mississippi up to when they intersect with that of Emmett Till. I thought he was central to the story, but his part of the book took up little space.
When Doll dies in a flood, Esther the Whore’s spirit inhabits that of a dead white body, named JW - who comes back to life when resuscitated by the whore’s spirit. He grows evil because Esther’s spirit is inside him.
JW is one of the men who later kills Emmett Till…. So, is the author trying to blame an “angry black woman” on inhabiting the body of a white man and killing Emmett Till? Or am I missing the point?
Then at the end of the novel, JW has long since died, and I guess “Esther the Whore” comes back as Hurricane Katrina? So she not only is this dead black woman to blame for the killing of Emmett Till, she is later responsible for the deaths of thousands of other black people in the south when she returns as a hurricane?
What…. What am I missing?
The story starts out with the “evil soul” of a long dead black woman, “Esther the whore”, inhabiting the body of a young girl, named Doll. You never learn of why Esther’s spirit stayed on Earth or why she was evil. The only thing we know about her is that she loved men but they never loved her back - so she became a whore. And in the afterlife, she becomes an evil spirit… Um… okay.
The rest of the book traces the lives of the people living in Money, Mississippi up to when they intersect with that of Emmett Till. I thought he was central to the story, but his part of the book took up little space.
When Doll dies in a flood, Esther the Whore’s spirit inhabits that of a dead white body, named JW - who comes back to life when resuscitated by the whore’s spirit. He grows evil because Esther’s spirit is inside him.
JW is one of the men who later kills Emmett Till…. So, is the author trying to blame an “angry black woman” on inhabiting the body of a white man and killing Emmett Till? Or am I missing the point?
Then at the end of the novel, JW has long since died, and I guess “Esther the Whore” comes back as Hurricane Katrina? So she not only is this dead black woman to blame for the killing of Emmett Till, she is later responsible for the deaths of thousands of other black people in the south when she returns as a hurricane?
What…. What am I missing?