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Talking Bones
Book by Youngblood, Shay
50 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Shay Youngblood
30 books105 followersGeorgia born writer Shay Youngblood is author of the novels Black Girl in Paris and Soul Kiss (Riverhead Books) and a collection of short fiction, The Big Mama Stories (Firebrand Books). Her plays Amazing Grace, Shakin' the Mess Outta Misery and Talking Bones, (Dramatic Publishing Company), have been widely produced. Her other plays include Black Power Barbie and Communism Killed My Dog. She completed a radio play, Explain Me the Blues for WBGO Public Radio's Jazz Play Series, featuring Odetta and the music of Olu Dara. The recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Pushcart Prize for fiction, a Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, an Edward Albee honoree, several NAACP Theater Awards, an Astraea Writers' Award for fiction and a 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Sustained Achievement Award.
Ms. Youngblood graduated from Clark-Atlanta University and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University. Her fiction, articles and essays have been published in Oprah magazine, Good Housekeeping, Black Book and Essence magazines among others. She has worked as a Peace Corp Volunteer in the Eastern Caribbean, an Au Pair, Artist's Model, and Poet's Helper in Paris and Creative Writing instructor in a Rhode Island Women's Prison. She is a board member of both Yaddo artists' colony and the Author's Guild. She has taught Creative Writing at NYU and was the 2002-03 John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is
currently Writer in Residence at Texas A&M University.
Ms. Youngblood graduated from Clark-Atlanta University and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University. Her fiction, articles and essays have been published in Oprah magazine, Good Housekeeping, Black Book and Essence magazines among others. She has worked as a Peace Corp Volunteer in the Eastern Caribbean, an Au Pair, Artist's Model, and Poet's Helper in Paris and Creative Writing instructor in a Rhode Island Women's Prison. She is a board member of both Yaddo artists' colony and the Author's Guild. She has taught Creative Writing at NYU and was the 2002-03 John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is
currently Writer in Residence at Texas A&M University.
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June 18, 2017Two mother-daughter pairs over three generations. Ruth, her daughter Baybay, and granddaughter Eila run a bookshop where they serve books "by and about African Americans and other cultures of color" as nourishment along with food. Their shop also holds the family burial grounds and each woman is able to communicate with their ancestors.
Eila, the youngest, has just been called back home from New York where, she says "the people out there looked past me, behind me, right through me." Baybay wears a blonde wig and is obsessed with what could have been in regards to her artistic dreams. She deeply resents her mother for needing her to return home. She often ignores or shushes the ancestors when they speak to her. Ruth is the steadfast matriarch, her and Baybay go at it all the time. She knows she'll pass soon and wants to make sure everything is in order before it happens.
This is a story for any woman who's left home, and especially for those who've ever been called to return. This is also for those who understand the threat of a material, white world on black psyches and well-being, and the sacrifice it takes to carve out spaces that resist integration into that type of violence.
bell hooks has said that black women writers like Ntozake Shange, Bessie Head, and Alice Walker have written fiction that serve more than the entertainment purposes of storytelling, their stories name our pain and offer maps for healing. Shay Youngblood's Talking Bones certainly fits within this canon.
Eila, the youngest, has just been called back home from New York where, she says "the people out there looked past me, behind me, right through me." Baybay wears a blonde wig and is obsessed with what could have been in regards to her artistic dreams. She deeply resents her mother for needing her to return home. She often ignores or shushes the ancestors when they speak to her. Ruth is the steadfast matriarch, her and Baybay go at it all the time. She knows she'll pass soon and wants to make sure everything is in order before it happens.
This is a story for any woman who's left home, and especially for those who've ever been called to return. This is also for those who understand the threat of a material, white world on black psyches and well-being, and the sacrifice it takes to carve out spaces that resist integration into that type of violence.
bell hooks has said that black women writers like Ntozake Shange, Bessie Head, and Alice Walker have written fiction that serve more than the entertainment purposes of storytelling, their stories name our pain and offer maps for healing. Shay Youngblood's Talking Bones certainly fits within this canon.
Displaying 1 of 1 review