"Push"

At the bookstore to pick up a gift for my cousin, I picked up something for myself too. Randomly I walked through the shelves, and saw a cover with a big black lady with butterfly wings and the title "Precious". A friend had told me to go watch the movie, which is based on the novel in front of me. But then he described briefly what it was about, and I cringed, and subconsciously have avoided the movie since it came out...

But somehow at the store, I was tempted despite the subject matter. I flipped through the book, glancing at the (purposely) misspelt narration of the "I" character Claireece Precious Jones-- an overweight (legal and politically correct term: "heavy-set"), 12 year old Africa-American girl, growing up in the poor and abusive environment in Harlem, NY.

I was hooked. The simple words, swear words, doodlings, and dialogue captivated me. In the quick metro ride I had already read 20 pages, and cannot seem to put it down, even though the subject matter is very sensitive....

" I'm twelve now, I been knowing that since I was five or six, maybe I have always known about pussy and dick. I can't remember not knowing. No, I can't remember a time I did not know. But thas all I knowed. I didn't know how long it take, what's happening inside, nothing, I didn't know nothing."

When I read passages like that, I have to close my eyes and breath deeply. Something deep inside echoes, and feels her pain, feels her suffering...

"...I just fall back on the couch so full it like I'm dyin' and I go to sleep, like I always do; almost. Almost, go to sleep [...] I just lay still still, keep my eyes close. I can tell Mama's other hand between her legs now 'cause the smell fill room [...] Go sleep, go sleep, go to sleep, I tells myself. Mama's hand creepy spider, up my legs, in my pussy. God please! Thank you god I say as I fall asleep."

That dream-like state... that temporary attempt at escaping from reality, at becoming numb and feelingless as in sleep. Harrowing...

"First he mess up my life fucking me, then he mess up the fucking talki' [...] But I keep my mouf shut so's the fucking don't turn into a beating. I start to feel good; stop being a video dancer and start coming. I try to go back to video but coming now, rocking under [...] now, my twat jumping juicy, it feel good. I feel shamed."

That's what it is. Shame, disgraced, wronged, dirtied... pleasure and pain all mixed into one. Hatred and love indistinguishable. Fear and relaxation dissolving like sugar in water...

Something about this book creeps into my heart, churns my memories, yet beckons me to read on. To read on in the mere hope that despite the suffering, humiliation, untold emotions bottled inside, there can be liberation and delivery from a seemingly repetitive and inescapable hellhole.


(Extracts from the text are not intended to infringe copyrights, but to indicate how powerful and worth reading the book is.)