The good Negress / A.J. Verdelle

This first novel by an exceptional writer indicates the wide scope of the African American female experience. Set in Virginia and Detroit during the 1950s and 1960s, the story concerns a young black girl who is encouraged by her teacher to shed her southern ``back woods'' ways. Neesy is astonished to learn that the proper way of spelling and pronouncing her name is Denise. More than anything, she wants to be educated, and does not want to spend her life as a ``good negress.'' For to be a good negress is never to look beyond one's station in life, to merely construct a self where expectation and performance are low. Forced to leave her grandmother's house in rural Virginia to move to Detroit to live with her pregnant mother and her mother's new husband, Denise begins to resent the fact that at 14 her education will end in order to attend to her mother's newborn. Encouraged to ``jump to the moon'' by her teacher, she continues to study despite her absence from school. Finally, her tenacity makes her triumphant. This is a difficult novel to read because of its flashbacks and foreshadowing, but its stress on education and a girl's coming of age are enough to tempt readers to stick with it to the end.