This book chronicles the lives of characters that seem to only suffer. I think the authors attempt at imagery fails. Characters seem to be thinking about something that they are then doing. I had a hard time figuring out how they got from point A to point B. I think the end is meant to be hopeful...
What she talked of was all gone past, for that was all that was worth telling. Nothing happened day to day that we cared to stick in our memories for later, and the things that stuck we wished wouldn’t’ve. It was Virginia, south of Petersburg, and a hungry belly was at least a sign you were alive...
After her father leaves them, Helen stares at the child and wishes she had been given the ribbons instead. Helen had asked her father for a silver brush with boar bristles and a hand mirror. She has no sense of what to do with a negro girl other than to make her fetch things. She advances slowly,...