Tayari Jones. Silver Sparrow. Algonquin Books, 2011.
Reviewed by Madison Natt.
For Dana, the precise meaning of a word is critical. Or, as she puts it, "It matters what you call things." She is careful to explain that her mother, Gwendolyn, is more than just a "wife," that she is also a concubine, whore, mistress, and consort. Dana's father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist, though with his bottle-neck glasses and stutter, he might seem like an unlikely candidate. If Dana has learned one thing from her parents, "it was that the law didn't understand anything about what passed between men and women."
Dana and Gwendolyn are fully aware of James' other family, but his wife Laverne and daughter Chaurisse know nothing of his second life. Dana tells us that Gwendolyn hates it when she uses the word "legitimate" to describe Chaurisse, but confesses that she really wants to use the word "real," intoning that "Chaurisse is his real daughter." Dana is also careful to distinguish between "surveil" and "spy," explaining that while James would probably think she and Gwendolyn were spying on his other family, Dana and Gwendolyn preferred to think of it differently.
Gwendolyn firmly believes that knowledge is power, but Dana only knows that Chaurisse gets first choice of schools, extracurricular activities, and jobs. Chaurisse also actually gets to live with James, while Dana must make do with dinner once a week on Wednesday nights. Dana knows that she will always get second choice, and her sole hope is that her father will care enough to apologize to her. After she realizes she will not be able to go to the prestigious Saturday Academy, she hopes that he will hug her and say he is sorry. "But he didn't say anything and his neck wasn't twitching so I knew that he wasn't stuck. He just didn't have any sorrys to say."
Silver Sparrow is set in Atlanta, and the story spans from 1958—the year James married Laverne—to 1987, when most of the action unfolds; Dana and Chaurisse, both 17, become friends and the truth finally comes out. The first half of the novel is narrated by Dana, firmly aligning reader sympathy with her feelings of inferiority and strong desire to be loved equally by her father. Through Dana, we also hear Gwendolyn's story, and we view Gwendolyn the way Dana does: strong, intelligent, reliable, smart, and worth more than James can give her. However, midway through the novel, the point of view shifts and we hear Chaurisse's story. Chaurisse also tells her mother's tale, and we come to understand that Laverne is just as much a victim, if not more so, than Gwendolyn. Impregnated by James at 14, she was forced into marriage before she was ready. It is also impossible to dislike Chaurisse, who loves her father blindly and ignorantly embraces Dana as her closest (and only) friend.
Jones subverts the reader's expectation when we learn that the chosen family is not quite as lucky as they seem from a distance, but underscores the basic inequality between the two girls' positions through the use of Chaurisse's insecurity about her physical appearance. Chaurisse tells the reader that that she was in kindergarten when she first realized she was not pretty; Laverne runs a beauty parlor, an occupation that makes her daughter acutely aware of her physical imperfections. The reader is already well acquainted with Dana when she appears openly for the first time in Chaurisse's life, a mysterious "silver girl" stranger—"silver girl" being Chaurisse's term for the lucky few who have "Natural Beauty" that they accentuate with "Pretty in a Jar." Chaurisse is especially concerned with her hair, which is "fine as spun cotton," and wears a wig; when she first meets Dana, she can't stop running her fingers through her half-sister's beautiful locks.
As Dana's friendship with Chaurisse develops, it is clear that James's secret will come out into the open, and it is only a matter of when, where, and how. Through Chaurisse and Dana, Jones questions familial roles, the true and varied meanings of the terms "father," "wife," "daughter," and a"sister." In Silver Sparrow, Jones acknowledges that love does not always present itself in the same way, and is certainly not always enough.
Reviewed by Madison Natt.
For Dana, the precise meaning of a word is critical. Or, as she puts it, "It matters what you call things." She is careful to explain that her mother, Gwendolyn, is more than just a "wife," that she is also a concubine, whore, mistress, and consort. Dana's father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist, though with his bottle-neck glasses and stutter, he might seem like an unlikely candidate. If Dana has learned one thing from her parents, "it was that the law didn't understand anything about what passed between men and women."
Dana and Gwendolyn are fully aware of James' other family, but his wife Laverne and daughter Chaurisse know nothing of his second life. Dana tells us that Gwendolyn hates it when she uses the word "legitimate" to describe Chaurisse, but confesses that she really wants to use the word "real," intoning that "Chaurisse is his real daughter." Dana is also careful to distinguish between "surveil" and "spy," explaining that while James would probably think she and Gwendolyn were spying on his other family, Dana and Gwendolyn preferred to think of it differently.
Gwendolyn firmly believes that knowledge is power, but Dana only knows that Chaurisse gets first choice of schools, extracurricular activities, and jobs. Chaurisse also actually gets to live with James, while Dana must make do with dinner once a week on Wednesday nights. Dana knows that she will always get second choice, and her sole hope is that her father will care enough to apologize to her. After she realizes she will not be able to go to the prestigious Saturday Academy, she hopes that he will hug her and say he is sorry. "But he didn't say anything and his neck wasn't twitching so I knew that he wasn't stuck. He just didn't have any sorrys to say."
Silver Sparrow is set in Atlanta, and the story spans from 1958—the year James married Laverne—to 1987, when most of the action unfolds; Dana and Chaurisse, both 17, become friends and the truth finally comes out. The first half of the novel is narrated by Dana, firmly aligning reader sympathy with her feelings of inferiority and strong desire to be loved equally by her father. Through Dana, we also hear Gwendolyn's story, and we view Gwendolyn the way Dana does: strong, intelligent, reliable, smart, and worth more than James can give her. However, midway through the novel, the point of view shifts and we hear Chaurisse's story. Chaurisse also tells her mother's tale, and we come to understand that Laverne is just as much a victim, if not more so, than Gwendolyn. Impregnated by James at 14, she was forced into marriage before she was ready. It is also impossible to dislike Chaurisse, who loves her father blindly and ignorantly embraces Dana as her closest (and only) friend.
Jones subverts the reader's expectation when we learn that the chosen family is not quite as lucky as they seem from a distance, but underscores the basic inequality between the two girls' positions through the use of Chaurisse's insecurity about her physical appearance. Chaurisse tells the reader that that she was in kindergarten when she first realized she was not pretty; Laverne runs a beauty parlor, an occupation that makes her daughter acutely aware of her physical imperfections. The reader is already well acquainted with Dana when she appears openly for the first time in Chaurisse's life, a mysterious "silver girl" stranger—"silver girl" being Chaurisse's term for the lucky few who have "Natural Beauty" that they accentuate with "Pretty in a Jar." Chaurisse is especially concerned with her hair, which is "fine as spun cotton," and wears a wig; when she first meets Dana, she can't stop running her fingers through her half-sister's beautiful locks.
As Dana's friendship with Chaurisse develops, it is clear that James's secret will come out into the open, and it is only a matter of when, where, and how. Through Chaurisse and Dana, Jones questions familial roles, the true and varied meanings of the terms "father," "wife," "daughter," and a"sister." In Silver Sparrow, Jones acknowledges that love does not always present itself in the same way, and is certainly not always enough.
Tayari Jones is currently researching her fourth novel at Harvard University, where she is a Radcliffe Institute Fellow. Her previous novels have received several awards, including the Hurston/Wright Award for Debut Fiction and the Lillian C. Smith Award for New Voices. Jones has received fellowships from organizations including Illinois Arts Council, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, The Corporation of Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Arizona Commission on the Arts and Le Chateau de Lavigny. She is a graduate of Spelman College, The University of Iowa, and Arizona State University, and is an Associate Professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University.
Madison Natt is a doctoral student at Florida State University. She is a contributing writer and reviewer for SEROnline.