From my home town...

If I am being completely honest, I have avoided reading Alice Walker... at least anything was wasn't assigned for a class. Consider me a victim of the green-eyed monster. Alice Walker was born in raised in my home town of Eatonton, GA and has managed to do what I can only dream of doing: she won the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple in 1983. And rightly so.

I was a little apprehensive about reading The Color Purple as my mom read it for her English class a couple years ago. After telling me a little bit about the storyline, I wasn't sure if this was something I was ready to tackle. It is a tough book, and Walker doesn't sugarcoat anything. But, I was pleasantly surprised when I finished.

A brief summary for those of you who may not have read it yet:

The main character is an African American girl named Celie, who finds herself raped and pregnant by her "father." Her father takes away the babies, and she thinks they are dead. She marries a Mr. _____ (his last name is never known) to escape and to help her sister, Nettie, escape the same fate. He is not much of a good man either and has a girlfriend on the side. In the end, however, Celie is able to make peace and finds contentment in her life. She learns to make a living for herself by sewing pants and ends up inheriting her parents house and finding her two children.

While at times I found myself pitying Celie and the circumstances in which she found herself, she never gave up on hope, and in the end, she had everything she wanted. It may not have come around in the most conventional way or the easiest, but in the end, it was everything she wanted and needed.

I am proud to say that Alice Walker came from my home town of Eatonton, GA. Like Celie's need to spread her wings and experience something new, I, too, could not wait to get out of Eatonton. To leave and never look back. But again, like Celie, I get homesick for the familiar. For the people that knew me when I was young, innocent, and stupid and still liked me in spite of it. I went back "home" earlier this summer, the first time in almost 10 years. My family now resides elsewhere, and I have had no reason to venture into the city limits. Somethings had changed, but it was a lot like I remembered.

Thomas Wolfe may say that you can't go home again, but Alice Walker says that you can. I think I like Alice Walker's idea better...

I have also finished reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (1994). But that is a topic for another day. Up next, I am thinking either Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller (1934) or Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (1948).

Until then... happy reading.