Hello book friends, I’m back from a wonderful few days in London with my little boy, my legs feel like I’ve walked about a hundred miles, and my bank balance is significantly lower than zero ☹ But I had a wonderful time there, so it was all worth it!
Anyhoo, I’m delighted to bring you a review for this amazing book I picked up when I had a credit-crisis!!
Why Did You Pick It Up Vicci?
Well, I really didn’t know anything about this story, I had a spare credit and couldn’t find a book that jumped out at me to read, so I went back to my old favourite method of choice, Narrator!
Once I saw that this was being narrated by January LaVoy, and it also had *something* to do with the Black Dahlia case I was sold.
My Thoughts
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This was such an interesting story about a girl named Fauna, the title is a nod to her light skin, because she was born mixed race as her father was black.
1951 – While working in a Casino as a Ladies Room Attendant, a young black woman called Jimmie is approached by a white woman who has had one too many drinks, she strikes up a conversation with her about her life and children.
Jimmie finds this very odd, but the woman is white, so probably a good tipper, so she plays along with her to see if she can get more money out of her.
In the conversation, the woman admits that her daughter is pregnant by a black man, and the child cannot stay with them for obvious reasons, so she is looking for a good “black home” to send her too, Jimmie enjoying the drunk talk tells the woman that she would be happy to take the child off of her hands, for a price of course, as her and her husband have never been able to conceive, gives the woman her address, and swiftly gets a crisp $50 tip, talk about good luck, drunk women!!
Except a few months later, Jimmie gets a new member of her household, a brand new baby girl, called Fauna, Jimmie’s husband isn’t happy about this at all, but goes along with it, considering that there is money involved, it might be a sweet deal, except she doesn’t look black, she doesn’t look black at all, and people notice it too, which makes Jimmie very angry.
We’re not categorized by the color of our skin. And just as Jesus was color-blind, so, too, is love. Our love for each other, for our brothers and sisters, and now for this baby is also color-blind. The only reason we see different color is because of a self-inflicted disease we call racism.”
And a sweet deal it is, they both come to love their daughter very much, as she gets older, they tell Fauna, now named Patty, that her real mother gave her away, but the whole time, they wait for her black to start showing through, except it really doesn’t.
But Patty is brought up a strong independent black girl, and she has plenty to say about people who don’t believe her, in fact she starts to take her birth certificate everywhere with her just to prove it as it clearly says “Father – Negro” on it.
But unfortunately, she is too white to fit in with the black kids, and too much like a black kid to fit in with the whites.
Jimmie, is not quite the loving mother she is portrayed to be in the neighbourhood, she is an alcoholic, and is very abusive toward Patty, and her string of lovers after her and her husband separate, also add to this, so much so that Patty eventually leaves the home and starts to find out a lot of information about her life that was kept from her by her “mother”
Lets just say that everything isn’t as it seemed!!
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Narration by January LaVoy was as always perfect, and this story was so brilliantly told by her.
Also a TV series called I Am The Night on TNT, I haven’t seen it myself, but I am anxiously waiting for it to come to UK TV so that I can.
About The Book
The inspiration for the TNT TV series I Am the Night.
The Black Dahlia Murder is near-legend in the annals of true crime. But behind the shocking case of a young actress’s gruesome slaying lies the story of another woman.
Was Fauna Hodel the child of incest, and the catalyst for a sensational trial that left her well-to-do family scarred by scandal, even as the accused sexual predator walked free? Taken as an infant from her teenage mother, Fauna was placed in the care of a working-class black woman, who raised the white child as her own.
Together, as a close-knit mother and daughter, they weathered years of poverty and bigotry, alcoholism and sexual abuse, pregnancy and even death—until the time came for Fauna to seek out her real mother, and uncover her lost past.
But as Fauna will learn, some truths don’t want to be told.
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