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A review by hbdee
Maame by Jessica George
5.0
Seriously, this is so NOT a rom-com--at least, not at all in the usual way. Above all, this is the author's love story to her deceased dad. It's the story of a woman who, at 12, assumed the burdens her mother should have carried but left to her when she absconded to spend every other year in her native Ghana--with, as it turned out, her sole beloved since childhood. Her mother never really supported Maddie, our protagonist writing in first person, except to deliver religious platitudes that left me wondering how the author could possibly still have any kind of faith, which she has, and deeply. Her older brother was never any help, either with money or with their ailing father, disabled with Parkinson's. Her mother routinely demanded money be sent to her in Ghana, where she was running a hostel; Maddie had to delve into her personal savings for that. In short, she didn't have any genuine family support and instead mothered them all, probably even before she ever had her first period.
Then, too, there's all the shit she has to deal with as a Black woman in the White world of publishing--well, frankly, every world is White world. At her new job, where she'd been hoping things would be different, her supervisor first asks for milk, then says it's not enough milk--and when she brings the entire container so the woman can have all the milk she wants, the beeotch then demands Maggie pour, "I'll tell you when to stop." I was flabbergasted. Dumbstruck. Yet I know from my daughters' experiences that this is par for the course--White people term them "microaggressions" but there's nothing MICRO about them. This is purely a throwback to slavery. This kind of b.s. causes PTSD and physical, multi-generational, trauma.
Maddie finally decides to lose her virginity at 25. She fails to notice that this seemingly very kind, very wealthy White guy never takes her out in public, or anywhere they would actually be seen together. She tells him she's a virgin, but her first sexual experience is both abrupt and shockingly painful. She has nothing for comparison and has never broached the topic with anybody. After, he offhandedly says something akin to, oops, I forgot a condom. She lets him off the hook by informing him she's been on the pill since age 16. He assumes she lied about her virginity--but mind, this conversation happens AFTER the fact; he'd cared not one whit about her virginity when he should have believed it was true. The second and mercifully last time they have sex, he takes her against the door as soon as he walks into her apartment, again, abruptly, painfully. As she (finally!) tells him off, having seen the light with the help of her close friends Nia and Shu, she tells him he never asked why she'd been on birth control so long, and that it's because she's always suffered from endometriosis. (Fully half the women on the pill are on it because of the excruciatingly painful periods of endometriosis. I had to have surgery for it at 25, causing also the removal of one ovary.) Turns out this f---er was aso f---ing another woman, a White woman, with whom he had an ACTUAL relationship. I was surprised to feel my teeth gritted, my jaw clamped tightly every time she was with him. He was just so OFF, right from the start. Who invites a woman to his place for dinner as a FIRST date?? There were red flags all over that play.
No longer a teetotaler and one day thoroughly hung over on the prompting of a flatmate, she misses her father's birthday--and on that day, her mother having left him alone to be with her lover (who's come with her from Ghana!), her dad aspirates on vomit and dies, all alone. Maddie will have a very hard time forgiving herself--or her mother--about this. She goes from her usual, years-long depression to such a savage loss, she cannot make it out of bed to get to work. For days on end, turning into weeks. She comes to believe that her suggestions at the office are being stolen and attributed to higher-ups to forestall her promotion. I wondered, what will this poor woman be subjected to NEXT?
But at work, they're more invested in her than she'd thought or even imagined. She is "invited" to talk therapy with the company's psychologist, who happens to be a Ghanaian Black woman. From there, Maddie begins to see her life differently. A gift from her father, a breakup from a toxic flatmate who was never a friend, and getting to know a good man (she'd heard having sex with said flatmate), turns everything around for her. Her mother reveals her own past history, from that Maddie gains better understanding, and they begin to find a togetherness they'd never had before. Even her brother steps up, after dad's buried. Too little, too late, IMHO, but Maddie is a better person than I.
In her afterword, the author reveals that this is essentially an autobiography. She tells us the line her mother once gave her that says so very much. Mom had asked whether she had a valentine, one Valentine's Day, and when Jessica answered in the negative, her mother advised, "Then let Jesus be your valentine." Good GRIEF.
I applaud her recovery. I wish such an awesome recovery were available to every woman struggling with all these same issues: Cassie Ventura comes immediately to mind. We should all, together, "Stand with a fist," to quote the name given to the White woman made native in "Dances With Wolves." We are all out there among the wolves, who are NOT the one in the movie.
Then, too, there's all the shit she has to deal with as a Black woman in the White world of publishing--well, frankly, every world is White world. At her new job, where she'd been hoping things would be different, her supervisor first asks for milk, then says it's not enough milk--and when she brings the entire container so the woman can have all the milk she wants, the beeotch then demands Maggie pour, "I'll tell you when to stop." I was flabbergasted. Dumbstruck. Yet I know from my daughters' experiences that this is par for the course--White people term them "microaggressions" but there's nothing MICRO about them. This is purely a throwback to slavery. This kind of b.s. causes PTSD and physical, multi-generational, trauma.
Maddie finally decides to lose her virginity at 25. She fails to notice that this seemingly very kind, very wealthy White guy never takes her out in public, or anywhere they would actually be seen together. She tells him she's a virgin, but her first sexual experience is both abrupt and shockingly painful. She has nothing for comparison and has never broached the topic with anybody. After, he offhandedly says something akin to, oops, I forgot a condom. She lets him off the hook by informing him she's been on the pill since age 16. He assumes she lied about her virginity--but mind, this conversation happens AFTER the fact; he'd cared not one whit about her virginity when he should have believed it was true. The second and mercifully last time they have sex, he takes her against the door as soon as he walks into her apartment, again, abruptly, painfully. As she (finally!) tells him off, having seen the light with the help of her close friends Nia and Shu, she tells him he never asked why she'd been on birth control so long, and that it's because she's always suffered from endometriosis. (Fully half the women on the pill are on it because of the excruciatingly painful periods of endometriosis. I had to have surgery for it at 25, causing also the removal of one ovary.) Turns out this f---er was aso f---ing another woman, a White woman, with whom he had an ACTUAL relationship. I was surprised to feel my teeth gritted, my jaw clamped tightly every time she was with him. He was just so OFF, right from the start. Who invites a woman to his place for dinner as a FIRST date?? There were red flags all over that play.
No longer a teetotaler and one day thoroughly hung over on the prompting of a flatmate, she misses her father's birthday--and on that day, her mother having left him alone to be with her lover (who's come with her from Ghana!), her dad aspirates on vomit and dies, all alone. Maddie will have a very hard time forgiving herself--or her mother--about this. She goes from her usual, years-long depression to such a savage loss, she cannot make it out of bed to get to work. For days on end, turning into weeks. She comes to believe that her suggestions at the office are being stolen and attributed to higher-ups to forestall her promotion. I wondered, what will this poor woman be subjected to NEXT?
But at work, they're more invested in her than she'd thought or even imagined. She is "invited" to talk therapy with the company's psychologist, who happens to be a Ghanaian Black woman. From there, Maddie begins to see her life differently. A gift from her father, a breakup from a toxic flatmate who was never a friend, and getting to know a good man (she'd heard having sex with said flatmate), turns everything around for her. Her mother reveals her own past history, from that Maddie gains better understanding, and they begin to find a togetherness they'd never had before. Even her brother steps up, after dad's buried. Too little, too late, IMHO, but Maddie is a better person than I.
In her afterword, the author reveals that this is essentially an autobiography. She tells us the line her mother once gave her that says so very much. Mom had asked whether she had a valentine, one Valentine's Day, and when Jessica answered in the negative, her mother advised, "Then let Jesus be your valentine." Good GRIEF.
I applaud her recovery. I wish such an awesome recovery were available to every woman struggling with all these same issues: Cassie Ventura comes immediately to mind. We should all, together, "Stand with a fist," to quote the name given to the White woman made native in "Dances With Wolves." We are all out there among the wolves, who are NOT the one in the movie.