God Bless the Child

by Kristin Hunter Lattany

Torn by the need for love and approval from her snobbish grandmother and her alcoholic mother, Rosie rises on her own, only to become a victim of the American Dream

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literary Fiction

313 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Kristin Elaine Hunter (September 12, 1931 - November 14, 2008) was an African American writer from Pennsylvania. She sometimes wrote under the name Kristin Hunter Lattany.

Hunter was born Kristin Eggleston in Philadelphia, attended the University of Pennsylvania and wrote for the Pittsburgh Courier, a black newspaper, until 1952. Her first novel, God Bless the Child, was published in 1964; like most of her work, it confronts complex issues of race and gender. Her 1966 novel The Landlord was made into a movie by Hal Ashby.

Reviews

[Dustin]

From Amazon:

Torn by the need for love and approval from her snobbish grandmother and her alcoholic mother, Rosie rises on her own, only to become a victim of the American Dream

Review
This is a novel filled with a rage reminiscent of Ralph Ellison's or Ann Petry's . God Bless the Child's Rosie Fleming grows up in an apartment where killing roaches is a childhood game. Her grandmother has always cared for and idolized rich white folks and admires anything that has the faintest whiff of "culture" (real or not). Rosie's mother is a woman whose experiences as a hairdresser and single mother have given her insights into people, but she is also an alcoholic who brings home "uncles" to spend the night, and Rosie doesn't listen to her mother's advice. Rosie grows up fast; who needs school when you could be earning money? Why earn just straight money when crooked money might come faster? For Rosie, money must bring happiness - and she needs money the way her mother needs five or seven drinks a night. Rosie doesn't understand yet what Kristin Hunter makes clear: as a black person in the United States, and particularly as a black woman, money will never give her power. Rosie's destruction is painful to watch, especially because Rosie is so vibrantly alive: "It's as natural for people to touch her as it is for them to warm their hands at a fire." The title comes from one of Billie Holliday's most famous songs: "Mama may have and Papa may have, but God bless the child that's got his own." After reading about Rosie, you might well ask, what "own" can a black child hope to have? -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out . -- From ; review by Erica Bauermeister

[Jewell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book many many years ago.... i was in middle or high school at the time. I don't know how I read it as a pre-teen/teen but reading it as an adult I found it to be disturbing.

The three central characters are female.... all related to one another, three generations of the same family.... grandmother, mother, and daughter. Their lives are so intertwined they don't see or begin to understand how so much alike they actually are although they each think they are better than the others.

Life's circumstances have put them all on paths of self destruction and denial. Although each believes they have succeeded they have all been beaten down by alcohol, drugs, illness and poverty.

Dreamers all three, in reality their dreams are nothing more than nightmares.

[Samikshakorake]

Nice book

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading this book back in high school, and it felt as solid real to me as the metal shelves in the dark wood-paneled room that held the library stacks, even though the setting and experiences of young Rose were far removed from my own experience.
Quote from Lattany's bio follows:
'Henrietta Buck of the Christian Science Monitor, says, “The book sounds like social tract. It’s not.
It is a story of people who have had the doors slammed on them once too often, who have become hobbled by the moral deformities of a fabricated society. The life they lead is like an immense, maca- bre charade, which act out conditions of privilege and security. When the unreality becomes too great, then the police arrive, bottles fly, the nightsticks crack, and the rest of the world watches from the safe side of the invisible boundary.” '

[Patricia Burroughs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I was seventeen years old, and never forgot it. Oh, I forgot many of the details, but never the combination of confusion, compulsion, and immersion that kept me turning pages until I got to the end. I need to reread it with more understanding now.