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Third Girl from the Left
With Third Girl from the Left, Southgate brings her acute vision and emotional scope to a larger canvas. This enormously entertaining yet serious novel tells a story of African-American women struggling against all odds to express what lies deepest in their hearts. Like Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay or E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, it ranges freely through time, fact, and fiction to weave an enthralling story about history and art and their place in the lives of three women.
“My mother believed in the power of movies and the people in them to change a life, to change her life.” So explains Tamara, daughter of Angela, granddaughter of Mildred — the three women whose lives are portrayed in stunning detail in this ambitious novel spanning three generations of one family.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1970 is not a place a smart black girl wants to linger. For Angela, twenty years old and beautiful, the stifling conformity is unbearable. She heads to Los Angeles just as blaxploitation movies are pouring money into the studios and lands a few bit parts before an unplanned pregnancy derails her plans for stardom.
For Mildred, movies have always been a blessed diversion in a life marked by the legacy of the 1921 Tulsa race riots. But after Angela leaves Tulsa following a bitter fight, the distance between them grows into a breach that remains for years.
It falls to Tamara, a budding documentarian — raised in LA by Angela as though they have no family, no history — to help mother and grandmother confront all that has been silenced and left unsaid in their lives.
A bold, beautifully written, and deeply involving novel, Third Girl from the Left deftly examines the pull of the movies, the power of desire, and the bonds of family in a quintessentially American story.
“My mother believed in the power of movies and the people in them to change a life, to change her life.” So explains Tamara, daughter of Angela, granddaughter of Mildred — the three women whose lives are portrayed in stunning detail in this ambitious novel spanning three generations of one family.
Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1970 is not a place a smart black girl wants to linger. For Angela, twenty years old and beautiful, the stifling conformity is unbearable. She heads to Los Angeles just as blaxploitation movies are pouring money into the studios and lands a few bit parts before an unplanned pregnancy derails her plans for stardom.
For Mildred, movies have always been a blessed diversion in a life marked by the legacy of the 1921 Tulsa race riots. But after Angela leaves Tulsa following a bitter fight, the distance between them grows into a breach that remains for years.
It falls to Tamara, a budding documentarian — raised in LA by Angela as though they have no family, no history — to help mother and grandmother confront all that has been silenced and left unsaid in their lives.
A bold, beautifully written, and deeply involving novel, Third Girl from the Left deftly examines the pull of the movies, the power of desire, and the bonds of family in a quintessentially American story.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published September 7, 2005
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2398 people want to read
About the author
Martha Southgate
9 books169 followersMartha Southgate is the author of four novels. Her newest, The Taste of Salt, is available in bookstores and online now. Her previous novel, Third Girl from the Left won the Best Novel of the Year award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was shortlisted for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy award. Her novel The Fall of Rome received the 2003 Alex Award from the American Library Association and was named one of the best novels of 2002 by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post. She is also the author of Another Way to Dance, which won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award for Best First Novel. She received a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts grant and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her July 2007 essay from the New York Times Book Review, “Writers Like Me” received considerable notice and appears in the anthology Best African-American Essays 2009. Previous non-fiction articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, O, Premiere, and Essence.
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June 5, 2020
Jar of Death Pick #34
4.5 Stars
A Quick Warning: The word dyke is used several times throughout this book.
June is Queer Lit month but I hadn't planned on reading any Queer books simply because I wasn't in the mood to read any of the books I own. So imagine my surprise when I'm a couple chapters in to this and I discover that one of the main characters a black woman is Bisexual. Sometimes the universe gives you just what you need.
Third Girl from the Left is such a layered and beautifully written story. This book is 15 years old and yet its still topical. I bought this book because I heard it was about Blaxploitation films but its about so much more. I didn't read the back cover before I started reading it so I was super shocked when the 1921 Tulsa race riots were a setting for part of this book. In my adult years I have become so fascinated with the Tulsa race riots and I can never understand how such an horrific event has been mostly forgotten by history. I mean I know that A Lot of horrific stuff has happened to us(black people) throughout history but the Tulsa race riots seem to be on another level and it just boggles my mind to think that we can go through our lives without knowing about this.
Basically research The Tulsa race riots people!
Back to the book review.
I really feel in love with Third Girl from the Left, I feel like I needed to read this book. This book had so much heart. I almost gave it 5 stars but I deduced half a star because I felt like one of the main characters Tamara wasn't as interesting as the other two Angela and Mildred and the last part of the book was about her. Had we not had Tamara's pov then this would have been a perfect book.
A Must Read!
4.5 Stars
A Quick Warning: The word dyke is used several times throughout this book.
June is Queer Lit month but I hadn't planned on reading any Queer books simply because I wasn't in the mood to read any of the books I own. So imagine my surprise when I'm a couple chapters in to this and I discover that one of the main characters a black woman is Bisexual. Sometimes the universe gives you just what you need.
Third Girl from the Left is such a layered and beautifully written story. This book is 15 years old and yet its still topical. I bought this book because I heard it was about Blaxploitation films but its about so much more. I didn't read the back cover before I started reading it so I was super shocked when the 1921 Tulsa race riots were a setting for part of this book. In my adult years I have become so fascinated with the Tulsa race riots and I can never understand how such an horrific event has been mostly forgotten by history. I mean I know that A Lot of horrific stuff has happened to us(black people) throughout history but the Tulsa race riots seem to be on another level and it just boggles my mind to think that we can go through our lives without knowing about this.
Basically research The Tulsa race riots people!
Back to the book review.
I really feel in love with Third Girl from the Left, I feel like I needed to read this book. This book had so much heart. I almost gave it 5 stars but I deduced half a star because I felt like one of the main characters Tamara wasn't as interesting as the other two Angela and Mildred and the last part of the book was about her. Had we not had Tamara's pov then this would have been a perfect book.
A Must Read!
September 11, 2012
This is the third Martha Southgate book I've read...and I can honestly say she is a fresh voice in Contemporary Black American literature. She has a way of telling the story that *on the surface* seems like it would be a familiar tale of class and race---but changing it to be from a totally different perspective. For that we are richer, because she adds a freshness to the dialog.
"Fall of Rome" had a different take on academic diversity and who does/doesn't support it, while "The Taste of Salt" showed a different perspective on cultural isolation in the professional world, and intellectual isolation from family.
Throw out the dust jacket, I have no idea what book the publisher was describing...because "Third Girl from the Left" is as much about Blaxploitation films as "Taste of Salt" was about Marine Biology. The film industry was just a supporting character to illustrate the role of women in cinema (and it's effects) over the years.
The jewel of this book lies in the complexities of the relationships formed by the women in this book. The love, the devotion, the dreams, the heartbreak, the desire to go far...even when you have no idea how far "far" is.
My favorite of the three so far...simply because this book I could feel. I could see all these women. They were incredibly life like.
"Fall of Rome" had a different take on academic diversity and who does/doesn't support it, while "The Taste of Salt" showed a different perspective on cultural isolation in the professional world, and intellectual isolation from family.
Throw out the dust jacket, I have no idea what book the publisher was describing...because "Third Girl from the Left" is as much about Blaxploitation films as "Taste of Salt" was about Marine Biology. The film industry was just a supporting character to illustrate the role of women in cinema (and it's effects) over the years.
The jewel of this book lies in the complexities of the relationships formed by the women in this book. The love, the devotion, the dreams, the heartbreak, the desire to go far...even when you have no idea how far "far" is.
My favorite of the three so far...simply because this book I could feel. I could see all these women. They were incredibly life like.
December 1, 2009
I read this book while listening to the dirtbomb's dangerous magical noise, which was a transporting experience. I dug this book alot. Even though there are some weaknesses, the strengths were enough to win me over. Southgate has an ability to capture some of the essential moments in black women's lives and make them feel totally real. This capacity alone took the book very far. I also think her other great strength was her accurate descriptions of sex and desire. When she would describe her characters' feelings and thoughts before, during and after sex, I knew what she was talking about (not Wilt Chamberlin though). I feel like it's a skill to make those scenes not clunky or stiff but fluid and recognizable to readers as something we've all experienced. SO those things were awesome along with the historical stuff on Tulsa, LA in the 70's and Jacob Lawrence who is one of my heroes. But I had trouble with the 3rd person omniscient narrator. When it was just Angela, it was great. I could even handle a couple of the other characters, but when she would switch into the men's heads and then skip over to someone else and then back to the female characters, it just took me out of it. I feel like it would of been stronger to keep it to the 3 central figures. I also felt like the writing kind of fell apart in the last section, that the meat was really the Angela section and I don't know how to remedy that but it made me miss that writing, even when I was still reading the book. Overall though, I thought Southgate did a great job. I am always so happy when someone writes about the lives of black women, especially with the kind of detail and care that Southgate uses.
March 4, 2008
A surprisingly great book--I picked up at the bargain section of Half-Price books. I was intrigued by the description--all about a woman who was an extra in some of the blaxplotation films of the 70s, her mother who was involved in the Tulsa Race Riot and her daughter who became a filmmaker. Hard to put down and a great story about the power of family and the movies.
July 22, 2011
It really doesn't get any better than Martha Southgate. I loved The Fall of Rome & can't even come up with a word to describe how much more I love Third Girl from the Left!
June 17, 2017
This is my favorite novel by Martha Southgate. One of the many things I like about Ms. Southgate’s work generally is that it often surprises me. It brings a gravitas and diversity to its subjects and characters that is subtle and I don’t see coming a mile away. That was never truer than in this wonderful book. “Third Girl from the Left” is the story of women – three of them, all of them black and American. These women are family. They are in each other’s lives for better or worse so they love and treat each other accordingly. Their stories are told in three parts each character a focal point of view in that section.
It begins with Angela, at a time when she is on the brink of leaving her home in Tulsa, OK. for Hollywood to become an actress in the height of Blaxploitation films. Angela is beautiful, strong willed, bewildering, messy, and wildly self-centered. Basically, she’s fascinating. I identified with this section perhaps more than other sections of the book because I grew up in this era. So, it was also here that I laughed out loud the most and could see everything happen the most vividly. Ms. Southgate does a great job of weaving real people and real popular culture into the story in ways that are often imaginary, but totally credible.
Mildred, Angela’s mother, dominates the second section of the book and offers, for me, the most poignant moments in this story. Mildred, more than even her daughter is a woman oppressed by the weight of the times in which she lives. Born at the early part of the 20th century, Mildred sees too much at an early age and buries it. Yet, she is so bound to that trauma throughout her life that it effects every relationship she has especially the one she has with her family.
Tamara, Angela’s daughter and Mildred’s granddaughter, is revealed in the third section offering us the most contemporary character of the book and perhaps the most difficult to know. Part of that I suspect is because Tamara is young when we first meet her and as she grows it is increasingly obvious she knows and understands little about the people she loves who are closest to her. Her often obstructed and tentative approach to discovery was heartbreaking and consequently more than the other women in the story it was Tamara I wanted to know and hear more about. Crossing my fingers that the book gets pick up for a TV series so that wish might become a reality.
In case you’re wondering there are many men in the body of this work -- all of them were haunting and extremely interesting in their own right, but this was a woman’s story and I was grateful and moved by that perspective throughout.
This was an easy read because the characters were richly drawn, the time periods and story etched with reality, and there were often poetic gems in the prose. I highly recommend it as well as all of Southgate’s work. It never disappoints.
It begins with Angela, at a time when she is on the brink of leaving her home in Tulsa, OK. for Hollywood to become an actress in the height of Blaxploitation films. Angela is beautiful, strong willed, bewildering, messy, and wildly self-centered. Basically, she’s fascinating. I identified with this section perhaps more than other sections of the book because I grew up in this era. So, it was also here that I laughed out loud the most and could see everything happen the most vividly. Ms. Southgate does a great job of weaving real people and real popular culture into the story in ways that are often imaginary, but totally credible.
Mildred, Angela’s mother, dominates the second section of the book and offers, for me, the most poignant moments in this story. Mildred, more than even her daughter is a woman oppressed by the weight of the times in which she lives. Born at the early part of the 20th century, Mildred sees too much at an early age and buries it. Yet, she is so bound to that trauma throughout her life that it effects every relationship she has especially the one she has with her family.
Tamara, Angela’s daughter and Mildred’s granddaughter, is revealed in the third section offering us the most contemporary character of the book and perhaps the most difficult to know. Part of that I suspect is because Tamara is young when we first meet her and as she grows it is increasingly obvious she knows and understands little about the people she loves who are closest to her. Her often obstructed and tentative approach to discovery was heartbreaking and consequently more than the other women in the story it was Tamara I wanted to know and hear more about. Crossing my fingers that the book gets pick up for a TV series so that wish might become a reality.
In case you’re wondering there are many men in the body of this work -- all of them were haunting and extremely interesting in their own right, but this was a woman’s story and I was grateful and moved by that perspective throughout.
This was an easy read because the characters were richly drawn, the time periods and story etched with reality, and there were often poetic gems in the prose. I highly recommend it as well as all of Southgate’s work. It never disappoints.
April 28, 2015
I read this for a book club -- it's probably not something that I would have picked up on my own, to be honest, but I'm glad it was a book club selection.
It had mixed reviews in book club -- not enough difference in voice, not enough connection between reader and narrator -- but I loved the character arc that spanned not one character, but three. Mildred has dreams but no real hope of realising them; to achieve her dreams, Angela must turn her back on everything she knows; Tamara, although she still has the odds stacked against her, has hopes of realising her dreams and taking her career further than her mother or her grandmother.
The writing runs the gamut from forced to evocative, but overall the book felt like a slice out of a life, or rather a set of lives, that I'll never be able to fully understand.
Lastly -- I can only thank the author for this gem:
Angela frowned. "What's a dyke?"
Sheila stretched. "A dyke is a big, mannish woman who hates men and only sleeps with other big, mannish women. Not like us. We just do it for fun." She looked at Angela intently. "Wanna do it again?"
-page 44
It had mixed reviews in book club -- not enough difference in voice, not enough connection between reader and narrator -- but I loved the character arc that spanned not one character, but three. Mildred has dreams but no real hope of realising them; to achieve her dreams, Angela must turn her back on everything she knows; Tamara, although she still has the odds stacked against her, has hopes of realising her dreams and taking her career further than her mother or her grandmother.
The writing runs the gamut from forced to evocative, but overall the book felt like a slice out of a life, or rather a set of lives, that I'll never be able to fully understand.
Lastly -- I can only thank the author for this gem:
Angela frowned. "What's a dyke?"
Sheila stretched. "A dyke is a big, mannish woman who hates men and only sleeps with other big, mannish women. Not like us. We just do it for fun." She looked at Angela intently. "Wanna do it again?"
-page 44
May 28, 2011
Third Girl From the Left follows three generations of African-American women; Angie, her mother Mildred, and Angie's daughter Tamara.
The protagonist, Angie, feels suffocated in her small Tulsa town and runs away to Los Angeles to become an actress. She struggles to find her way in a new and exotic town that doesn't live up to her child-hood fantasies of fame and fortune. Mildred grew up in a more conservative era, which provides for an often tumultuous relationship with her daughter. And Tamara desperately searches for the secrets of her family's past.
This family saga takes you on a historical journey from the 1921 Tulsa race riots to the blaxploitation of the 1970's film industry. It masterfully weaves the reader through the coming of age, of sorts, of an entire family.
There is an underlying lesbian sub-plot regarding Angie's relationship with Sheila, but it doesn't overshadow the main story line.
Brilliantly crafted novel of a family searching for themselves and for each other.
The protagonist, Angie, feels suffocated in her small Tulsa town and runs away to Los Angeles to become an actress. She struggles to find her way in a new and exotic town that doesn't live up to her child-hood fantasies of fame and fortune. Mildred grew up in a more conservative era, which provides for an often tumultuous relationship with her daughter. And Tamara desperately searches for the secrets of her family's past.
This family saga takes you on a historical journey from the 1921 Tulsa race riots to the blaxploitation of the 1970's film industry. It masterfully weaves the reader through the coming of age, of sorts, of an entire family.
There is an underlying lesbian sub-plot regarding Angie's relationship with Sheila, but it doesn't overshadow the main story line.
Brilliantly crafted novel of a family searching for themselves and for each other.
July 1, 2012
I really enjoyed parts of this and other parts were so-so hence the three stars. I also read it in fits and starts which didn't help. It was great to read a story about different generations of black women that touched on their hopes, fears and dreams while also dealing with the issue of knowing and appreciating one's roots.
This is the third book by Martha Southgate that I've read and it's pretty obvious she likes to write her books from the different perspectives of her characters. While I enjoy that approach, sometimes it falls flat depending on whose voice it is. For instance, even though I sympathized with Mildred and liked her, reading the story from her perspective wasn't really satisfying. I felt Angela's voice was the best even though I didn't particularly like her character. Tamara's voice sort of tied everything together despite her being the youngest and dealing more with the present.
This is the third book by Martha Southgate that I've read and it's pretty obvious she likes to write her books from the different perspectives of her characters. While I enjoy that approach, sometimes it falls flat depending on whose voice it is. For instance, even though I sympathized with Mildred and liked her, reading the story from her perspective wasn't really satisfying. I felt Angela's voice was the best even though I didn't particularly like her character. Tamara's voice sort of tied everything together despite her being the youngest and dealing more with the present.
August 15, 2007
I've never read any of Southgate's work but this was a powerful story that is interwoven through three generations of women and covers race, sexuality, class, and the broken heart.
November 8, 2015
This book was better than I expected. I picked it from my college town's book sale for 25 cents.
At first, I thought it was just going to be told from Tamara's point of view. I got a little bored but decided to give the book a chance. And man, I'm glad I did. We switch to Angela's section first which was very interesting because this I didn't expect us to have different POVs.
I enjoyed Angela for the most part. And I was pleasantly surprised at the lesbian/bisexual relationship with Sheila and Angela. As a bisexual black women, to find a book that has a LGBT character who is also a BW I was very happy. I really hoped it didn't go down that "happy lesbians break up" trope that's common with LGBT media. I'm glad they stayed together to at the end. I wasn't too happy with the weird non-closure with got with Rafe. He seemed like he really cared about her and the baby. He even mentioned in his POV chapter that he wanted to tell her how much he wanted to raise this baby with her. I don't believe that he didn't try to contact her when Tamara was a few months old. I feel like it was just a reason for him to be out of them picture. I like Sheila and Angela together but I would rather Angela say "I want to be with Sheila" rather than have Rafe not be in the picture.
I was even more surprised when we switched to Mildred's POV. I didn't enjoy her as much as Angela, maybe because it just seemed like she was just very compliant and didn't seem to have a voice of her own. I liked when she, briefly, talked about how she didn't like Jolene and how she thought it was a sin not to like your own children. She even has a breakdown before her affair, saying she shouldn't have had children. I wish this was touched on a little bit more. I feel like the author glossed over it with one liners. It could have been an interesting plot point. We could then see why Angela turned out the way she did. I thought her affair with William was way too short. She said she loved him but I didn't get that in such a short amount of time? It was weird. I also didn't know where all the times she called Angela a whore or a slut came from. She knows what it's like to have an affair and yet she's judging her own daughter? I didn't get that.
Tamara's POV was by far my least favorite. I think she got the shortest section too. We didn't have a lot of stuff with her growing up like we did with Angela and Mildred so I felt detached from her character. I did relate to her on the film school part. I am also majoring in a film related major and I also do not have the money to do what I'm doing. Lol.
I think the ending was rushed. The whole thing was Tamara finding out everything from Mildred just telling her felt very cheap to me. There was so many creative ways the author could have done this.
I know it sounds like I'm bashing the book but I'm not! I enjoyed it. I think the different POVs really strengthen the book and it's message. I loved it. I will definitely read another one of her books!
At first, I thought it was just going to be told from Tamara's point of view. I got a little bored but decided to give the book a chance. And man, I'm glad I did. We switch to Angela's section first which was very interesting because this I didn't expect us to have different POVs.
I enjoyed Angela for the most part. And I was pleasantly surprised at the lesbian/bisexual relationship with Sheila and Angela. As a bisexual black women, to find a book that has a LGBT character who is also a BW I was very happy. I really hoped it didn't go down that "happy lesbians break up" trope that's common with LGBT media. I'm glad they stayed together to at the end. I wasn't too happy with the weird non-closure with got with Rafe. He seemed like he really cared about her and the baby. He even mentioned in his POV chapter that he wanted to tell her how much he wanted to raise this baby with her. I don't believe that he didn't try to contact her when Tamara was a few months old. I feel like it was just a reason for him to be out of them picture. I like Sheila and Angela together but I would rather Angela say "I want to be with Sheila" rather than have Rafe not be in the picture.
I was even more surprised when we switched to Mildred's POV. I didn't enjoy her as much as Angela, maybe because it just seemed like she was just very compliant and didn't seem to have a voice of her own. I liked when she, briefly, talked about how she didn't like Jolene and how she thought it was a sin not to like your own children. She even has a breakdown before her affair, saying she shouldn't have had children. I wish this was touched on a little bit more. I feel like the author glossed over it with one liners. It could have been an interesting plot point. We could then see why Angela turned out the way she did. I thought her affair with William was way too short. She said she loved him but I didn't get that in such a short amount of time? It was weird. I also didn't know where all the times she called Angela a whore or a slut came from. She knows what it's like to have an affair and yet she's judging her own daughter? I didn't get that.
Tamara's POV was by far my least favorite. I think she got the shortest section too. We didn't have a lot of stuff with her growing up like we did with Angela and Mildred so I felt detached from her character. I did relate to her on the film school part. I am also majoring in a film related major and I also do not have the money to do what I'm doing. Lol.
I think the ending was rushed. The whole thing was Tamara finding out everything from Mildred just telling her felt very cheap to me. There was so many creative ways the author could have done this.
I know it sounds like I'm bashing the book but I'm not! I enjoyed it. I think the different POVs really strengthen the book and it's message. I loved it. I will definitely read another one of her books!
August 22, 2009
The interlocking stories of Tulsa native Angela, her mother Mildred, and her daughter Tamara illustrate how women's experience in the U.S. was limited, even given the rise of feminist and Black nationalist consciousness and the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. The novel tells each woman's story in separate sections, which illustrates how the women remain in their own worlds, estranged from the others. Angela has the most openly revolutionary story--she rebels against her parents' constrained middle class existence in Tulsa, which comes across as a big, small town where people settle down to lives of routine and gossip. Angela escapes to L.A. where she tries to become a star in Blaxploitation films, but she only secures a few parts and gets involved in the fast and loose life of casual sex and drugs. The extent of her liberation is always questionable because of her lack of self-awareness: though she understands she is being exploited, she never quite sees how much. Like a lot of protagonists in African-American literature (Helga Crane of Quicksand comes to mind immediately), she is blind to a lot. For instance, her long relationship with pal Sheila, which she refuses to classify as romantic. Any way, Angela's story is the most compelling one. Mildred's story emphasizes the kind of limitation Angela is fleeing. She is, however, a character who is quietly liberated through art and discrete romance, and thus connects to her granddaughter, Tamara. I gave the book a four but I think it could be better. It might have been more convincing about place, especially because the Tulsa riots of 1921 and buzzing black L.A. of the 70s are important elements. I also felt Southgate was pulling too many strings at the end to gussy everything up. Still, I am looking forward to reading more of her work. Her characterizations are really strong, and she can pull off a happyish ending without making it seem pat, as she did in The Fall of Rome.
August 26, 2009
Martha Southgate & I went to grade school together, and I find her fiction (both Third Girl and Fall of Rome) to reflect an experience of gender, race and class that is particular to our generation -- too young to be Boomers; grounded in a lived rather than intellectual feminism; the historically conscious fruit of generations of liberation struggle that often falls from not quite far enough from the tree that bore it, half-ripened and not altogether sweet.
The voices in Third Girl from the Left ring true: Mildred, avid movie-goer and survivor of the Tulsa race riots in '21, comes late from a life of obligation into the fulfillment of sensual desire and art. Her estranged daughter Angela simply longs to be seen -- in bit parts in movies and in life -- and to follow desire, including her desire to spend her life with a woman she loves. Angela's daughter Tamara closes the loop in this family trilogy; a film maker who needs to lean on the history and sense of place that her grandmother and mother have fled, she breaks open a beauty that has been punished into silence:
"You see that beauty as it finally is even though no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America, not a hoochie, hot a ho, not a mammy, not a dyke, not a cliche, just a woman. A lot of women. real women doing what they can, making art where they can, making their lives mean something where they can."
I highly recommend this book.
The voices in Third Girl from the Left ring true: Mildred, avid movie-goer and survivor of the Tulsa race riots in '21, comes late from a life of obligation into the fulfillment of sensual desire and art. Her estranged daughter Angela simply longs to be seen -- in bit parts in movies and in life -- and to follow desire, including her desire to spend her life with a woman she loves. Angela's daughter Tamara closes the loop in this family trilogy; a film maker who needs to lean on the history and sense of place that her grandmother and mother have fled, she breaks open a beauty that has been punished into silence:
"You see that beauty as it finally is even though no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America, not a hoochie, hot a ho, not a mammy, not a dyke, not a cliche, just a woman. A lot of women. real women doing what they can, making art where they can, making their lives mean something where they can."
I highly recommend this book.
January 10, 2009
This is another I culled from the lists for "National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month". A good chunk of it is set during the era of blaxploitation movies. I had no idea there was such a thing, or that a few movies I had heard of (but not seen) were part of that genre. Again, reading this book, I experienced references to an assumed cultural background that I don't have. The littlest mentions of things dropped as background dressing (the hair at the nape of the neck is called "the kitchen") were brand new to me, but because they were just background dressing it was easier to absorb them.
I don't pretend that reading AA fiction gives me any sort of understanding of what it means to be AA in any area in any era, but I feel a measure less ignorant about my neighbors now, and that's not nothing. Plus, the book was just generally fun to read, sad and funny and righteous with strong female characters each tied to their own setbacks but running towards something.
I don't pretend that reading AA fiction gives me any sort of understanding of what it means to be AA in any area in any era, but I feel a measure less ignorant about my neighbors now, and that's not nothing. Plus, the book was just generally fun to read, sad and funny and righteous with strong female characters each tied to their own setbacks but running towards something.
October 25, 2011
Martha Southgate did a rave for The Barbarian Nurseries, so I thought I'd check her out. I was soon wrapped up in a beautifully rendered almost too real story of African American women living and moving their lives from Tulsa to LA to NYC... I laughed some, felt stirred up a lot, and came close to crying. Now, I'm going to research Southgate and see what else she's written. This one was a true discovery.
I wish i'd written this review:
Third Girl From The Left will be justifiably praised as a fine, pull-no-punches portrait of growing up black and female in "modern" America, but what amazes me almost more than Southgate's daring is her versatility: she can write fast and hot, then lush and tender, then just plain truthful and burning with heart. This book is the best kind of page-turner, layered with so much authentic detail about family, culture, and history that it feels both intimate and epic. What a wonderful story." —Julia Glass, author of Three Junes, winner of the National Book Award
I wish i'd written this review:
Third Girl From The Left will be justifiably praised as a fine, pull-no-punches portrait of growing up black and female in "modern" America, but what amazes me almost more than Southgate's daring is her versatility: she can write fast and hot, then lush and tender, then just plain truthful and burning with heart. This book is the best kind of page-turner, layered with so much authentic detail about family, culture, and history that it feels both intimate and epic. What a wonderful story." —Julia Glass, author of Three Junes, winner of the National Book Award
June 21, 2017
APB Perspective Review :
You have got to read this book! I didn't even believe I wanted to read it , I didn't think I would like but I love it ! I didn't like Angela at first but I understood by the end . This book is a journey of a family of women , they aren't perfect but they have a story that will keep you turning the pages . These women are memorable and sympathetic . We all have our dreams and the journey to make them come true is a story in itself . I loved these words written by the author on the last pages " You see that beauty as it finally is even tho no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America , not a hoochie , not a ho, not a mammy, not a dyke, not a cliche' , just a woman. ( Martha Southgate )
You have got to read this book! I didn't even believe I wanted to read it , I didn't think I would like but I love it ! I didn't like Angela at first but I understood by the end . This book is a journey of a family of women , they aren't perfect but they have a story that will keep you turning the pages . These women are memorable and sympathetic . We all have our dreams and the journey to make them come true is a story in itself . I loved these words written by the author on the last pages " You see that beauty as it finally is even tho no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America , not a hoochie , not a ho, not a mammy, not a dyke, not a cliche' , just a woman. ( Martha Southgate )
January 18, 2008
This book spans 3 generations of women and the events in their lives that make them who they are. It's a story that many will probably be able to commiserate with. The writing is so vivid that the characters seem to be playing out the entire book right in front of you.
It focuses on the idea of family and what that means as well as what love means and whom you love. What it means to be a woman, what it means to own your sensuality, to be afraid of it. It encompasses all the emotions that one has as they find who they are and do the best that they can. Although sad, it's a beautiful book with an edgy sense of humor, a real page turner.
It focuses on the idea of family and what that means as well as what love means and whom you love. What it means to be a woman, what it means to own your sensuality, to be afraid of it. It encompasses all the emotions that one has as they find who they are and do the best that they can. Although sad, it's a beautiful book with an edgy sense of humor, a real page turner.
January 26, 2011
-The ending made me cry.
-Three generations of African-American women and their relationships to Hollywood movies. We start, more or less, with Angela, in the middle, "the third girl from the left," tiny bit parts in blaxploitation flicks before she gives up; her mother Mildred had loved movies, and loved knowing how things worked when she was little, fascinated by machinery and projectors before gender and race expectations made her give them up; and Tamara, Angela's daughter, wants to be a director. From watcher to actor to director: love, and increasing control, and the personal and social constraints each woman has to fight against. Sometimes that means fighting each other.
-Three generations of African-American women and their relationships to Hollywood movies. We start, more or less, with Angela, in the middle, "the third girl from the left," tiny bit parts in blaxploitation flicks before she gives up; her mother Mildred had loved movies, and loved knowing how things worked when she was little, fascinated by machinery and projectors before gender and race expectations made her give them up; and Tamara, Angela's daughter, wants to be a director. From watcher to actor to director: love, and increasing control, and the personal and social constraints each woman has to fight against. Sometimes that means fighting each other.
December 21, 2016
What a remarkable book. The Tulsa race riots, blaxploitation films, closeted gayness, gender and class in the film industry... and three generations of women - each a powerful character struggling to face their truth and understand what they don't know.
June 14, 2007
Pretty delightful.
July 16, 2007
Beautifully written. Moving, intelligent and soulful. A portrait of the relationship between mothers and daughters, race, class, family and learning to love oneself.
April 17, 2023
So... a week or so ago, I read a blog post/email about some good deals on recent books or good recent books to read... can't remember the exact point... and this book was on the list. This list had a number of different types of genres and one of them was a memoir of the 1980's Broadway and the effect of the AIDS epidemic. For some reason, when I went back to searching in my library's website, I thought that was this book (Third Girl from the Left) because I guess I thought it referenced a chorus girl in a production... But I was wrong and borrowing and reading this story (a work of fiction, not a memoir) was a happy accident. So this is a story about a family, mostly the women of a family who delight in the transcendence of film, of the movies. It has a reference in the trauma of race violence, notably the riot in Tulsa in the 1920s. These women all feel out of place, like they do not belong, with the older generation scrupulously trying to keep all her living under control as she saw how devastating the order of her life can break down when it is not, to her daughter who comes of age during a zeitgeist of overturning all the rules and goes for her dream only to be disappointed by the barriers and exploitation which exist for women of her age and her race. This third generation rejects all those prior rules and tradeoffs but the barriers of poverty and high entry cost serve to limit her ability to join the rising film student meritocracy. It's like those political internships in DC... only the wealthy grads need apply. Anyhow I guess that is the difference between the Leah Dunhams and the Spike Lees... that high expensive bar to proving your talent. The introduction to her familial past ignites a creative fire as well as insights into who she is which promises to give her redemption in profession as well as healing in their relationships. Again, the themes of abandonment, resentments, secrets, and then reuniting and the promise of secrets revealed are again present (I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something with these themes that keep repeating in my random literature choices). This book reveals a Black American point of view and what I would interpret as institutional discrimination in the Hollywood system which seems to me to be as oppressive and exploitative as the Tulsa Massacre's (although the book only refers to it as a riot) after effects which served as social/racial terrorism. One of the messages is that the creation and portrayal of expressive/visual art is therapeutic and may be the best one can bring out of such trauma.
May 1, 2022
I enjoyed this book a lot. I’m giving it an extra star because I especially loved that the whole thing centered around films. I enjoyed reading about how film has changed over the years and different perspectives of movie lovers, actresses, and filmmakers. I loved reading about each women’s story and how it affected the relationships with the other women in her family. The ending was just okay. I could have predicted it. I kept feeling like all of this backstory would lead to some grand ending but the story just ended, leaving all of the reflection up to the reader. I’m still glad that I read it. It was one of those books I found on my shelf and couldn’t remember how it got there. I’m glad I kept it.
December 7, 2025
3.5 stars.
Race is, of course, a central theme in this book, as are movies. But the truth is, this wouldnt have to have been written about African-American women, because the main themes are universal. Striving for dreams. Loneliness. Family, however it’s defined, with all its plusses and minuses. Alienation. Southgate’s writing gets progressively stronger as the book goes on and she sums up these themes in each of her main characters. I knew I was on the right track when I read the book’s final paragraph: “… even though no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America, not a hoochie, not a ho,…not a cliche, just a woman. A lot of women. Real women…” There should be something in this book that speaks to everyone, regardless of race or age.
Race is, of course, a central theme in this book, as are movies. But the truth is, this wouldnt have to have been written about African-American women, because the main themes are universal. Striving for dreams. Loneliness. Family, however it’s defined, with all its plusses and minuses. Alienation. Southgate’s writing gets progressively stronger as the book goes on and she sums up these themes in each of her main characters. I knew I was on the right track when I read the book’s final paragraph: “… even though no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America, not a hoochie, not a ho,…not a cliche, just a woman. A lot of women. Real women…” There should be something in this book that speaks to everyone, regardless of race or age.
August 23, 2020
Three and a half stars. An enjoyable read, turned the pages quickly. Lovely idea behind it about family and women and identity and some awesome period colour: it has a cinematic feel. Her writing around sex is particularly lovely. And she entwines personal stories with history with a light but resonant touch. But it felt unfinished to me, I hadn't thought I was expecting something big but when I got to the end it turned out I had been?!
September 7, 2023
I stumbled upon this book at a free library box. What a find! I had never heard of this author. The characters were well developed, and the storyline was fantastic. The infusion of history was intertwined beautifully. I had a hard time putting this book down. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about it.
March 5, 2022
Fantastic book about intergenerational trauma, the changing racial landscape of the 20th century, blaxploitation films, family, love, and queerness. I adored Angela, and loved the story told through the three generations of women. Beautifully written and still relevant 17 years later.
March 24, 2024
So glad I saw a write up of this 2006 book in the New York Times. Fascinating story of three generation of women and their experiences in this country. I'm so proud of Tamara and wish I knew what became of her!!!
July 21, 2025
What a satisfying read! Well written with great characters...no real plot other than the kind of drama that propels our real lives. Love the Los Angeles vibes. Love how the queerness is depicted. I especially loved the character of Angela: she is always herself.
November 30, 2017
Really gorgeous story of three generations of resilient, creative women. Can't wait to read more by Southgate!
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