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Eva's Man
'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' TAYARI JONES, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE
Eva Medina Canada sits in her psychiatric ward, silent and unremorseful. She has murdered her lover and they want to know why. Her memories weave back and forth over encounters with the men in her life - the schoolboy who played doctors and nurses with a dirty popsicle stick; her mother's boyfriend; her cousin; her husband; a stranger on the bus. She's been propositioned and abused for as long as she can remember.
'Corregidora was a small, fiercely concentrated story, harsh and perfectly told . . . Original, superbly imagined, nothing about the book was simple or easily digested. Out of the worn themes of miscegenation and diminishment, Gayl Jones excavated the disturbingly buried damage of racism. Eva's Man is a deepened exploration of the woman's inner life; of the pressures, the cruelties, the imposed expectations'
Darryl Pinckney, The New Republic
'Gayl Jones is one furious, lacerating writer. You don't read her easily, and you can't forget her at all . . . Hyper-real and traumatic as this novel is, it's one that's been waiting to be written since Samuel Richardson gave us the male point of view of Clarissa, that other fallen woman whose only acceptable alternative to ravishment was death. Eva's silence, and her status here as legally insane, are eloquent testimony to the condition of being a woman in this man's world' Kirkus
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
Gayl Jones
42 books633 followersGayl Jones is an African-American writer from Lexington, Kentucky. Her most famous works are Corregidora, Eva's Man, and The Healing.
Jones is a 1971 graduate of Connecticut College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English. While attending the college she also earned the Frances Steloff Award for Fiction. She then began a graduate program in creative writing at Brown University, studying under poet Michael Harper and earning a Master of Arts in 1973 and a Doctor of Arts in 1975.
Harper introduced Jones's work to Toni Morrison, who was an editor at the time, and in 1975, Jones published her first novel Corregidora at the age of 26. That same year she was a visiting lecturer at the University of Michigan, which hired her the following year as an assistant professor. She left her faculty position in 1983 and moved to Europe, where she wrote and published Die Vogelfaengerin (The Birdwatcher) in Germany and a poetry collection, Xarque and Other Poems. Jones's 1998 novel The Healing was a finalist for the National Book Award, although the media attention surrounding her novel's release focused more on the controversy in her personal life than on the work itself. Her papers are currently housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. Jones currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she continues to write.
Jones has described herself as an improvisor, and her work bears out that statement: like a jazz or blues musician, Jones plays upon a specific set of themes, varying them and exploring their possible permutations. Though her fiction has been called “Gothic” in its exploration of madness, violence, and sexuality, musical metaphors might make for a more apt categorization.
(from Wikipedia)
Jones is a 1971 graduate of Connecticut College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English. While attending the college she also earned the Frances Steloff Award for Fiction. She then began a graduate program in creative writing at Brown University, studying under poet Michael Harper and earning a Master of Arts in 1973 and a Doctor of Arts in 1975.
Harper introduced Jones's work to Toni Morrison, who was an editor at the time, and in 1975, Jones published her first novel Corregidora at the age of 26. That same year she was a visiting lecturer at the University of Michigan, which hired her the following year as an assistant professor. She left her faculty position in 1983 and moved to Europe, where she wrote and published Die Vogelfaengerin (The Birdwatcher) in Germany and a poetry collection, Xarque and Other Poems. Jones's 1998 novel The Healing was a finalist for the National Book Award, although the media attention surrounding her novel's release focused more on the controversy in her personal life than on the work itself. Her papers are currently housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. Jones currently lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she continues to write.
Jones has described herself as an improvisor, and her work bears out that statement: like a jazz or blues musician, Jones plays upon a specific set of themes, varying them and exploring their possible permutations. Though her fiction has been called “Gothic” in its exploration of madness, violence, and sexuality, musical metaphors might make for a more apt categorization.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 123 reviews
January 27, 2022
10th book of 2022.
This actually deserves a 4-star but I can't really bring myself to give it to it. Structurally, above all, this is quite the tour de force; Jones has accomplished a dizzying portrayal of repressed trauma slowly coming to the surface and the slow breakdown of the psyche. Eva is in a psychiatric ward for killing a man and biting off his dick. Storming around, paragraph by paragraph, are scenes from a number of time periods and settings: from the cell she was in, from the bed with the man she later kills, from her childhood, from growing up and being sexually assaulted at various points by various men, from memories of her family and so on. Once these are grounded early on as signposts in the absolute hurricane of this short novel, Jones gives us no clear pointers when we are returning to each these places/times and sometimes we jump from sentence-to-sentence around, Jones trusting in the reader completely to remember various things about each signpost so we can identify them ourselves, or not.
Jones has quite a bit of personal controversy around her [1] and I've been wanting to read her for some time as she is sort of a lesser known literary American giant. Her best known work is The Healing which was being published around her mother's death and Higgins' war against the centre. But Eva's Man is a short and angry book, reserved and angry at the same time, which makes it a complicated read, structure notwithstanding. There are some brilliant and saddening paragraphs like this,
It's a spiralling and repetitive read, a lot of the same snatches of dialogue continue to come up, some scenes are repeated, but it's all just a giant wash of people being sexually assaulted, beaten, put down, dealing with loneliness and feeling ostracised, all that spiralling a giant plughole, which the novel never really entirely drops down in the end.
______________________
[1] Jones' later husband, Higgins, in the early 80s, claimed to be God and that AIDS was a punishment at a gay rights parade and a woman punched him. He returned with a shotgun and was arrested. He did not appear in court and instead him and Jones fled the country to Europe. Apparently in the late 80s they returned to the US but have kept their identities hidden. In the 90s, Jones' mother fell ill and died in '97. Around the time of her illness Higgins was banned from the hospital because an evaluation dictated that Jones' mother was manipulated by her family, particularly her son-in-law. After she died, Higgins began ringing and writing to the police every day, campaigning against the cancer centre. Then the police received a bomb threat and realised that Higgins was previously wanted for arrest and was using a different name. There was a standoff at their residence and Higgins killed himself. Jones was put on suicide watch and since then only talks with her family and Harper and refuses all interview requests.
This actually deserves a 4-star but I can't really bring myself to give it to it. Structurally, above all, this is quite the tour de force; Jones has accomplished a dizzying portrayal of repressed trauma slowly coming to the surface and the slow breakdown of the psyche. Eva is in a psychiatric ward for killing a man and biting off his dick. Storming around, paragraph by paragraph, are scenes from a number of time periods and settings: from the cell she was in, from the bed with the man she later kills, from her childhood, from growing up and being sexually assaulted at various points by various men, from memories of her family and so on. Once these are grounded early on as signposts in the absolute hurricane of this short novel, Jones gives us no clear pointers when we are returning to each these places/times and sometimes we jump from sentence-to-sentence around, Jones trusting in the reader completely to remember various things about each signpost so we can identify them ourselves, or not.
Jones has quite a bit of personal controversy around her [1] and I've been wanting to read her for some time as she is sort of a lesser known literary American giant. Her best known work is The Healing which was being published around her mother's death and Higgins' war against the centre. But Eva's Man is a short and angry book, reserved and angry at the same time, which makes it a complicated read, structure notwithstanding. There are some brilliant and saddening paragraphs like this,
'A man talks to himself when he's lonely,' James said. 'I go out to restaurants sometimes but I sit way over in the corner by myself. People see me and think I'm crazy because I just be sitting over there laughing and talking to myself. Or either somebody asks, "What's that nigger talking about?" A man's lonely and he laughs and talks to himself. He ain't crazy, he's lonely.'
It's a spiralling and repetitive read, a lot of the same snatches of dialogue continue to come up, some scenes are repeated, but it's all just a giant wash of people being sexually assaulted, beaten, put down, dealing with loneliness and feeling ostracised, all that spiralling a giant plughole, which the novel never really entirely drops down in the end.
______________________
[1] Jones' later husband, Higgins, in the early 80s, claimed to be God and that AIDS was a punishment at a gay rights parade and a woman punched him. He returned with a shotgun and was arrested. He did not appear in court and instead him and Jones fled the country to Europe. Apparently in the late 80s they returned to the US but have kept their identities hidden. In the 90s, Jones' mother fell ill and died in '97. Around the time of her illness Higgins was banned from the hospital because an evaluation dictated that Jones' mother was manipulated by her family, particularly her son-in-law. After she died, Higgins began ringing and writing to the police every day, campaigning against the cancer centre. Then the police received a bomb threat and realised that Higgins was previously wanted for arrest and was using a different name. There was a standoff at their residence and Higgins killed himself. Jones was put on suicide watch and since then only talks with her family and Harper and refuses all interview requests.
October 19, 2026
This is one of those books that grabs you by the shirt collar and drags you along in a feverish rush of violence, madness and anxiety. It opens with a woman, Eva Medina Canada, in a psychiatric cell talking to another woman, Elvira, about why she murdered the man she murdered. And away we go!
The book is a wild, swirling narrative of almost stream-of-consciousness writing which has Eva jumping around in her life, to her childhood, to the man she killed, to the man she married, her cellmate, the man her mother was cheating on her father with (and who also tried to molest her as a child), plus a few other excerpts from her life. It’s a never-ending orgy of sexual abuse and mistreatment, all wrapped up in a prose style which ought to be confused and muddled but which (amazingly) works extremely well. One paragraph takes place in her childhood, the next in her adult life, the next in her cell. And yet it all gels smoothly, and you know exactly where you are at all times. And more importantly, you know how her mind works, how it is unravelling.
We get a full picture of her life, the many men that have abused her (or tried to) as well as the man she stabbed (leading to her first short prison spell and later marriage to the detective who investigated her crime). Her abuse started young and is relentless, while her mental health suffers with each incremental experience. There is a sense of powerlessness with men, of attempting to acquire her own (the murdered man was possessive despite barely knowing her) and her desire to be viewed as more than just a piece of sexual meat.
I was sucked into this and found the writing mesmerising. Towards the end, it does feel a little repetitive with yet more abuse and confused memory but for the most part it works very well. I was stunned by how she kept changing her point of narration, her time period, continuously switching from childhood to present to marriage and so on, each of these switches perfectly coherent and never confusing. This was an accomplishment in itself. It really is a mad haze of delirious mental illness, memory, abuse, love, loss, regret and sorrow. But at no point do you feel lost. While the book is bleak and overwhelmed by misery, it makes up for this by producing a style of prose which is vibrant and addictive. Not for everyone possibly, but I was entirely swept along.
The book is a wild, swirling narrative of almost stream-of-consciousness writing which has Eva jumping around in her life, to her childhood, to the man she killed, to the man she married, her cellmate, the man her mother was cheating on her father with (and who also tried to molest her as a child), plus a few other excerpts from her life. It’s a never-ending orgy of sexual abuse and mistreatment, all wrapped up in a prose style which ought to be confused and muddled but which (amazingly) works extremely well. One paragraph takes place in her childhood, the next in her adult life, the next in her cell. And yet it all gels smoothly, and you know exactly where you are at all times. And more importantly, you know how her mind works, how it is unravelling.
We get a full picture of her life, the many men that have abused her (or tried to) as well as the man she stabbed (leading to her first short prison spell and later marriage to the detective who investigated her crime). Her abuse started young and is relentless, while her mental health suffers with each incremental experience. There is a sense of powerlessness with men, of attempting to acquire her own (the murdered man was possessive despite barely knowing her) and her desire to be viewed as more than just a piece of sexual meat.
I was sucked into this and found the writing mesmerising. Towards the end, it does feel a little repetitive with yet more abuse and confused memory but for the most part it works very well. I was stunned by how she kept changing her point of narration, her time period, continuously switching from childhood to present to marriage and so on, each of these switches perfectly coherent and never confusing. This was an accomplishment in itself. It really is a mad haze of delirious mental illness, memory, abuse, love, loss, regret and sorrow. But at no point do you feel lost. While the book is bleak and overwhelmed by misery, it makes up for this by producing a style of prose which is vibrant and addictive. Not for everyone possibly, but I was entirely swept along.
March 27, 2022
Eva’s Man (1976) by Gayl Jones is the only book I’ve read that I would fully figure as transgressive fiction written by a black woman (though of course, I am always looking for new suggestions). The story follows Eva, who is cruelly and mercilessly abused by her lover, Davis, who keeps her locked in her room until her psyche morphs under the strain of isolation and punishment. As Hilton Als writing for The New Yorker put it, “ Eva experiences with Davis a sort of extension of everything she’s ever experienced with men: capture, hurt, extreme violence.”
Of course, the knowledge that is horridly beat out of transgression (sexualization, fetishization, commerce of the body, exploitation, etc.) has figured prominently in black feminist thought for decades, but Jones seems to be one of the few black female authors to have fully harnessed the transgressive energies of brutality, provocation, and misandry to where they explode into appalling horror, injustice, and chaos on the page in an unbridled, fully confrontational attitude (a writing attitude, I venture to offer, that she shares with most (good) horror writers).
Toni Morrison, Jones’s biggest supporter and publisher during her initial years as a writer, notes that, most of all, the novel showcases the struggles black women face with finding a genuine voice to express the legitimacy of their abuse and horrific experiences. In particular, she touches on how (primarily white) audiences often express “disillusion” at the fact that most black female narratives of this kind centralize suffering, but Morrison incisively informs us of how, above all, suffering is important to address simply because it is human and universal.
It is fascinating to me that this is perfectly, 1000% in line with what transgressive thinkers like Bataille and Foucault expressed about the power of transgression: That it brings the chaos of existence into the centrality of a human wound, and in regarding the wondrous origin and promise of these violations, we acknowledge that the sovereign human body is dignified and important enough to have its wounds examined at a philosophical level.
Of course, the knowledge that is horridly beat out of transgression (sexualization, fetishization, commerce of the body, exploitation, etc.) has figured prominently in black feminist thought for decades, but Jones seems to be one of the few black female authors to have fully harnessed the transgressive energies of brutality, provocation, and misandry to where they explode into appalling horror, injustice, and chaos on the page in an unbridled, fully confrontational attitude (a writing attitude, I venture to offer, that she shares with most (good) horror writers).
Toni Morrison, Jones’s biggest supporter and publisher during her initial years as a writer, notes that, most of all, the novel showcases the struggles black women face with finding a genuine voice to express the legitimacy of their abuse and horrific experiences. In particular, she touches on how (primarily white) audiences often express “disillusion” at the fact that most black female narratives of this kind centralize suffering, but Morrison incisively informs us of how, above all, suffering is important to address simply because it is human and universal.
It is fascinating to me that this is perfectly, 1000% in line with what transgressive thinkers like Bataille and Foucault expressed about the power of transgression: That it brings the chaos of existence into the centrality of a human wound, and in regarding the wondrous origin and promise of these violations, we acknowledge that the sovereign human body is dignified and important enough to have its wounds examined at a philosophical level.
January 23, 2010
My my my... the book starts with her biting her man's dick off - it truly gets no better than that!
September 26, 2022
More formally experimental than her earlier (and no less brilliant) Corregidora and accordingly a more challenging reading experience. But I love that sort of thing, so this was right in my proverbial wheelhouse.
Eva’s Man is an extremely uncomfortable, brutal, harrowing read, but it really grabbed me. I devoured it over two days and it left me emotionally shattered and head-spun and ashamed to me a human male. The constant threat of sexual violence hangs over everything, making for an oppressive and bleak read that will haunt the halls of my memory palace for a very long time.
Incredible work. This was my second book from Gayl Jones and will certainly not be my last.
Highly recommended if you can handle vividly written depictions of sexual objectification and violence. If not, I’d advise steering well clear of this one.
Eva’s Man is an extremely uncomfortable, brutal, harrowing read, but it really grabbed me. I devoured it over two days and it left me emotionally shattered and head-spun and ashamed to me a human male. The constant threat of sexual violence hangs over everything, making for an oppressive and bleak read that will haunt the halls of my memory palace for a very long time.
Incredible work. This was my second book from Gayl Jones and will certainly not be my last.
Highly recommended if you can handle vividly written depictions of sexual objectification and violence. If not, I’d advise steering well clear of this one.
May 31, 2013
Through the first fifty pages, I thought I understood what the book wanted to do, but then the rug was slowly pulled out from beneath me, and the last half of the book was a whirlpool of nightmare images, recurring metaphors that scratched me every time they whipped by. This book is not about plot, it is about emotion, with all of its contradictions and confusions. Nobody acts from any one reason -- we have uncountable reasons for doing (or not doing) what we do, from combing our hair to rape, to murder, we do it for a thousand reasons, and none at all.
Megan Sweeney, author of Reading is my window : books and the art of reading in women's prisons, used this book as one of her titles in a women's prison book group as she investigated how women prisoners use victimization narratives to construct their own healing. She reports that women were split on responses towards how Eva refused to speak in her own defense. Is she empowered by choosing silence, or has she been silenced, and therefore remains a victim? After my read, I still can't answer that question...
Megan Sweeney, author of Reading is my window : books and the art of reading in women's prisons, used this book as one of her titles in a women's prison book group as she investigated how women prisoners use victimization narratives to construct their own healing. She reports that women were split on responses towards how Eva refused to speak in her own defense. Is she empowered by choosing silence, or has she been silenced, and therefore remains a victim? After my read, I still can't answer that question...
December 8, 2008
A strange, visceral book about how we make sex nightmarish.
September 7, 2020
This feels like a true sister novel to Corregidora in its form and thematic focus, but it's oh so much more hopeless. The relationships between men and women could not be more dire. Men morph and contort into an amalgam of Manhood, a masculinity entrenched in objectification and sexual violence. Gayl Jones seems to love mining territory that feels inescapable and impossible to change in the most frightening ways.
November 8, 2023
A traumatic and haunting portrayal of Eva Medina Canada’s state of mind as she recounts years of sexual violence and assault; all of which lead up to the present day. The retellings of repeated sexual abuse and objectification from the various men in her life since she was a young girl were so raw, heartbreaking, and emotive. It seemed to be a metaphor as her mental well being slowly began to crumble. It was difficult trying to decipher which events actually happened and which were hallucinations intertwined and presented as the truth. The inner dialogue and narration of Eva’s thoughts and feelings are chaotic but in the best way.
January 23, 2022
If I could count on my hand how many predators I have encountered in my life I would already have five fingers up but too stunned with myself to keep counting. Eva’s man flooded my memories. There is something about a man reaching down into your privacy to really check if you are bleeding so that HE gets to decide if he can cum or not that screams FUCK YOU to him.
What privilege of yours is it to ask a woman if she is a virgin? To reach out and grope a woman and reply I know you like it. From the sticking of a popsicle between her legs to her cousin minimizing what it would mean to suck her titties. Eva Medina Canada was labeled a whore before she opened her legs and could see woman get sexualized and beat by men who “knew what they wanted”.
“I submit the insanity of Eva Medina Canada, a woman who loved a man who did not return that love”. Although Eva’s Man tells the story of how Eva ended up in the psychiatric ward due to killing her man, In between this, Eva gives the reader events in her life where men’s role contributed to how she came to be. From early childhood into adulthood, there was always a man trying to take what’s between a woman’s leg. Eva is the definition of silent but deadly. Her inability to love but tormented by sexual abuse. Eva is so many little girls turned into women. Eva is me.
What privilege of yours is it to ask a woman if she is a virgin? To reach out and grope a woman and reply I know you like it. From the sticking of a popsicle between her legs to her cousin minimizing what it would mean to suck her titties. Eva Medina Canada was labeled a whore before she opened her legs and could see woman get sexualized and beat by men who “knew what they wanted”.
“I submit the insanity of Eva Medina Canada, a woman who loved a man who did not return that love”. Although Eva’s Man tells the story of how Eva ended up in the psychiatric ward due to killing her man, In between this, Eva gives the reader events in her life where men’s role contributed to how she came to be. From early childhood into adulthood, there was always a man trying to take what’s between a woman’s leg. Eva is the definition of silent but deadly. Her inability to love but tormented by sexual abuse. Eva is so many little girls turned into women. Eva is me.
February 6, 2022
“He asked me if I’d been hurt in life. He said I looked like a woman who’d been hurt in life. I didn’t answer.” (105)
•
The language is stripped raw to the bone. The trauma exposed from every bit of the body. The mind staggering through past, present, future. A dream state of living. Jones’ has created a brutal history so well versed in a body breaking that only as a fiction can it be told. I am in awe at the power of this author.
•
The language is stripped raw to the bone. The trauma exposed from every bit of the body. The mind staggering through past, present, future. A dream state of living. Jones’ has created a brutal history so well versed in a body breaking that only as a fiction can it be told. I am in awe at the power of this author.
September 16, 2021
Holy sh*t!! What did I just read??!!!!
March 21, 2025
"Evas Mann" ist ein Jahreshighlight, mit dem ich definitiv nicht gerechnet habe. Es ist ein eindrucksvoller Einblick in das Leben einer schwarzen Frau in den 70ern.
Eva Medina Canada sitzt im Gefängnis. Sie hat ihren Liebhaber ermordet. Doch wieso, bleibt ihr Geheimnis. Im Gefängnis beginnt sie sich zu erinnern. Erinnerungen an ihr bisheriges Leben voller Missbräuche. Erfahrungen mit unzähligen Männern, die sich über sie gestellt haben. Diese werden irgendwann zu einem Wirrwarr singulärer Ereignisse, die jedoch alle in einer universellen Erfahrung aufgehen: Die Frau als vermeintliche Verführerin. Letztendlich gelingt ihr eine tragische Selbstermächtigung, die ihr das gesamte Leben verwehrt wurde.
Dieser Roman ist so eindrucksvoll und voller Emotionen und schmerzhafter Einblicke in das Leben einer schwarzen Frau, das von Missbräuchen und Machtausnutzungen von Männern durchzogen ist. Es entsteht eine Geschichte, die den Leser aufgrund ihrer Tragik völlig in ihren Bann zieht.
Zu Beginn sind die einzelnen Vorkommnisse noch sehr gut voneinander getrennt. Doch je weiter die Geschichte voranschreitet, desto verschwommener werden die Erinnerungen und Eindrücke aus Evas Leben. So werden Sätze und Handlungen von unterschiedlichen Ereignissen durcheinandergeworfen, weshalb nur noch eine Gemeinsamkeit durch diese Geschichte hindurchzieht: Der Mann als Täter, die Frau als vermeintliche Verführerin.
Durch diesen Erzählstil ist dieser Roman ein sehr besonderes Buch.
Zurück bleibt ein kurzer, zügig erzählter Roman voller tiefer Eindrücke in das tragische Leben von Eva Canada. Ein Buch, das ich so schnell nicht vergessen werde.
Eva Medina Canada sitzt im Gefängnis. Sie hat ihren Liebhaber ermordet. Doch wieso, bleibt ihr Geheimnis. Im Gefängnis beginnt sie sich zu erinnern. Erinnerungen an ihr bisheriges Leben voller Missbräuche. Erfahrungen mit unzähligen Männern, die sich über sie gestellt haben. Diese werden irgendwann zu einem Wirrwarr singulärer Ereignisse, die jedoch alle in einer universellen Erfahrung aufgehen: Die Frau als vermeintliche Verführerin. Letztendlich gelingt ihr eine tragische Selbstermächtigung, die ihr das gesamte Leben verwehrt wurde.
Dieser Roman ist so eindrucksvoll und voller Emotionen und schmerzhafter Einblicke in das Leben einer schwarzen Frau, das von Missbräuchen und Machtausnutzungen von Männern durchzogen ist. Es entsteht eine Geschichte, die den Leser aufgrund ihrer Tragik völlig in ihren Bann zieht.
Zu Beginn sind die einzelnen Vorkommnisse noch sehr gut voneinander getrennt. Doch je weiter die Geschichte voranschreitet, desto verschwommener werden die Erinnerungen und Eindrücke aus Evas Leben. So werden Sätze und Handlungen von unterschiedlichen Ereignissen durcheinandergeworfen, weshalb nur noch eine Gemeinsamkeit durch diese Geschichte hindurchzieht: Der Mann als Täter, die Frau als vermeintliche Verführerin.
Durch diesen Erzählstil ist dieser Roman ein sehr besonderes Buch.
Zurück bleibt ein kurzer, zügig erzählter Roman voller tiefer Eindrücke in das tragische Leben von Eva Canada. Ein Buch, das ich so schnell nicht vergessen werde.
August 19, 2012
This book is an excellent book dealing with the subconscious mind of Eva Medina. She was sexually abused while she was young. The author takes on a slow an methodical history through Eva's memory. It is like visualizing her thoughts which take you a suspense ending you would not imagine but would know realize why she made that choice. Gayl Jones delves in the psychological mind with an inventive dialogue. I recommend anyone who is needing to understand the human mind to read this book.
March 22, 2014
It was alot to take. Very graphic. Very disturbing. I finished it quickly because I liked it, but it was so disorienting.
November 30, 2014
Before "fierce" became a dandy word for Bravo TV shows, I feel like Eva in this book (and perhaps her creator, author Gayl Jones) would be more deserving of the word. Perhaps toss in feral as well, although through the hopeless kaleidoscope of abuse and neglect in this story, there's a willful intelligence that was striking.
Of course feral and intelligent can exist together, but the quarters might get cramped at times, or possibly bloody. The book circles through events and jumps swiftly across time, for me that ended up being dizzily addictive. I could see this as off-putting for others.
Eva's a fascinating character that I don't pretend to understand, not sure she understands herself either. She's beyond Good and Precious if you know what I mean. And it's not one of those simple, a victim becomes a criminal tales either...pretty much both victim and perp from page one.
For something written in 1976, its urgency persists in reading it in 2014. Although despite Chesterfields and other tips, when I hit a detective's just-the-fact's rap sheet on pp70, I was a little surprised that our protagonista was born in 1937. Of course people are still singing and stinging from the blues over 100 years ago.
Stagger Lee might have read this book, or maybe walked through it?
Ms. Jones sure hasn't written much over time, but I intend to track down more of what she has. Would love to find a spin-off book written solely about Eva's father in this book. Sounds like more than a little bit of life and a complicated relationship with a man have woven into Ms. Jones own story.
Hope to hear more from her, very curious if she's found more wisdom or bitterness, or at least voices/ideas to share.
Of course feral and intelligent can exist together, but the quarters might get cramped at times, or possibly bloody. The book circles through events and jumps swiftly across time, for me that ended up being dizzily addictive. I could see this as off-putting for others.
Eva's a fascinating character that I don't pretend to understand, not sure she understands herself either. She's beyond Good and Precious if you know what I mean. And it's not one of those simple, a victim becomes a criminal tales either...pretty much both victim and perp from page one.
For something written in 1976, its urgency persists in reading it in 2014. Although despite Chesterfields and other tips, when I hit a detective's just-the-fact's rap sheet on pp70, I was a little surprised that our protagonista was born in 1937. Of course people are still singing and stinging from the blues over 100 years ago.
Stagger Lee might have read this book, or maybe walked through it?
Ms. Jones sure hasn't written much over time, but I intend to track down more of what she has. Would love to find a spin-off book written solely about Eva's father in this book. Sounds like more than a little bit of life and a complicated relationship with a man have woven into Ms. Jones own story.
Hope to hear more from her, very curious if she's found more wisdom or bitterness, or at least voices/ideas to share.
April 12, 2011
I read this book a while ago but couldn't comment on it because it was so ... bizare.
It's a psycological thriller of sorts about a woman who kills her lover and, I think, has a necrophilic love for him. I didn't understand how or even when she killed him until I looked it up on the internet! I absolutely hate having to research to understand the authors message or reason for writing a story. It is no longer entertainment but becomes more of a project; more tedious.
The reason that I gave it a two was because it was a book that I had to read for a college project and I was told that it was a brilliant book. I didn't get it.
By the way, this is NOT a book for kids!!! There is a great amount of cursing, describing child molestation, and abuse - not to mention murder which is what the book is about.
It shifts back and forth through time from chapter to chapter. I had to go back often to remain up to date as to where I was in the author's view of time. Not my thing!!! As I read my notes in the book, I see that the author was trying to write as the mind of the main character. Therefore things were just discombobulated. Reading should be easy and entertaining, light on the palate. Just didn't get it.
It's a psycological thriller of sorts about a woman who kills her lover and, I think, has a necrophilic love for him. I didn't understand how or even when she killed him until I looked it up on the internet! I absolutely hate having to research to understand the authors message or reason for writing a story. It is no longer entertainment but becomes more of a project; more tedious.
The reason that I gave it a two was because it was a book that I had to read for a college project and I was told that it was a brilliant book. I didn't get it.
By the way, this is NOT a book for kids!!! There is a great amount of cursing, describing child molestation, and abuse - not to mention murder which is what the book is about.
It shifts back and forth through time from chapter to chapter. I had to go back often to remain up to date as to where I was in the author's view of time. Not my thing!!! As I read my notes in the book, I see that the author was trying to write as the mind of the main character. Therefore things were just discombobulated. Reading should be easy and entertaining, light on the palate. Just didn't get it.
April 28, 2023
“You know what I think,” the psychiatrist said. “I think he came to represent all the men you’d known in your life.”
⚡️
Most of a persons background after a crime is unknown. Like how since Eva was a girl there was always a man, and in some instances a boy, that was always trying to get a feel of what’s between her legs. And her being told about the predator in the neighborhood, being felt up by strangers, and even those men that we’re supposed to have been protectors of her innocence.
⚡️
The story starts with Eva being in a psychiatric facility, being silent to her psychiatrist. Eva refuses to tell her side of the story. Though she does speak some to her cellmate. As the story unfolds, the reader is able to see all of the predatory moments Eva endured. Every moment shaped her and ultimately landed her in this position.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 22, 2019
When reading the last line of this book, palms swallowed my entire face suffocating it with absolute darkness. The central protagonist was momentarily lost and supplanted with disturbing sadness.
Eva's Man by Gayl Jones is reminiscent of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison but without the multifariousness and unique style of Morrison's writing. Jones wrote in a manner that made the reader feel like they were listening to her subconscious.
The book chronicles the ramifications of Eva's early years of recurring sexual trauma and will likely be an unforgettable one for the reader.
Gayl Jones is another author I recommend to readers.
Eva's Man by Gayl Jones is reminiscent of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison but without the multifariousness and unique style of Morrison's writing. Jones wrote in a manner that made the reader feel like they were listening to her subconscious.
The book chronicles the ramifications of Eva's early years of recurring sexual trauma and will likely be an unforgettable one for the reader.
Gayl Jones is another author I recommend to readers.
March 15, 2010
The first two sections had me convinced I was reading another fictionalized memoir of constant childhood sexual abuse. Why the literary community decided "A Child Called It" was a great narrative source is beyond me. Anyway, it got redeemed in the part 3, which brought it from one star to three. It started out prose and ended poetry.
August 6, 2015
After reading this I felt like I needed a hug. Not an easy or lighthearted book. It's the darker version of Bluest Eye if you can imagine that. Toni Morrison actually used to be Gayl Jones editor back in the day; until Jones said she couldn't work with her because she didn't like her editing.
This book is upsetting and brilliant.
This book is upsetting and brilliant.
October 4, 2020
A disturbing and fascinating journey through the memories of a woman who has had violating sexual experiences with men throughout her life leading to a complicated murder. Emotional and unclear as it must be to accurately portray the inner struggle of Eva, the writing is evocative and gripping. A short novel with a long reach.
February 11, 2017
Odd but interesting story. Some of the events in Eva's life were traumatic as she was very descriptive in delivering this story. Good read
July 31, 2019
WARNING: Very disturbing. Sexual abuse throughout. Graphic.
This is a book I will likely, hard as I may try, never forget.
This is a book I will likely, hard as I may try, never forget.
March 28, 2023
maddening silence...this book is eerie and haunting...the cruelties of life make us all mad
March 17, 2022
After I read the last page I said "What the fuck did I just read?!" And I mean that in the best possible way. This book is so chaotic (in a good way) in jumps back and forth between the present day and the events of Eva's life that ledd her to her current situation; "sitting in a psychiatric ward, silent". Eva has murdered her current lover in a gruesome way and everyone wants to know why but she refuses to and/or is incapable of vocalizing her life and traumas in a reliable way.
"Her memories weave back and forth over encounters with the men in her life- the schoolboy who played doctors and nurses with a dirty popsicle stick; her mother's boyfriend; her cousin; her husband; a stranger in the bus. She's been proposition and abused for as long as she can remember."
This is one book I'll never forget, Gayl explores the sexualization of little Black girls and the oversexualization and objectification of Black women. It focuses on the life of women in a man's world, the realities, pressures and cruelties women face and how these factors ultimately causes Eva's actions and reactions.
This is really a book you need to read to appreciate
"Her memories weave back and forth over encounters with the men in her life- the schoolboy who played doctors and nurses with a dirty popsicle stick; her mother's boyfriend; her cousin; her husband; a stranger in the bus. She's been proposition and abused for as long as she can remember."
This is one book I'll never forget, Gayl explores the sexualization of little Black girls and the oversexualization and objectification of Black women. It focuses on the life of women in a man's world, the realities, pressures and cruelties women face and how these factors ultimately causes Eva's actions and reactions.
This is really a book you need to read to appreciate
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February 26, 2026Structurally remarkable, flitting through time within the space of a single paragraph sometimes a single sentence. brilliant representation of the emotional truth of time, that it is not fixed but bleeds through
April 18, 2022
yeah, gayl jones gets it!
December 24, 2024
Got a lil repetitive towards the end, but I think that's the point? Never read anything like this. 3.75 stars.
December 4, 2021
Gayl Jones writes like Coleman Hawkins plays sax on The Man I Love.
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