By Sapphire
Reviewed by Lisa Miller
Knopf
PUSH is a resurrection story, so it begins in hell. It is hard to figure out who Precious Jones is precious to. She is sixteen and pregnant with the second child by her father.
...her father who came to her in the night had not held her but had pushed her back and flung his stinking pee-pee smelling thing in her mouth, then finally in her vagina. Years and years like that. Frist grade had started in a dirty pink dress that had his smell smeared on it.Her mother doesn't protect her from him, but instead throws some of her own abuse on the fire. Precious' large, dark figure is considered with fear or contempt when it is considered at all.
...then she pick up the cast iron skillet,... and hit Precious so hard on her back she fall on floor. Then she kick Precious in the ribs. Then she say, "Thank you Miz Claireece Precious Jones for fucking my husband you nasty little slut!"After being kicked out of regular junior high school because of the pregnancy, she is placed in an alternative literacy program where slowly she is exposed to the kind of supports you wouldn't think a person should have to struggle to get.
"Rite or wRite write
more she say
talk more...Sapphire writes her first novel mostly from this young girl's point of view.
I big, I talk, I eats, I cooks, I laugh, watch TV, do what my muver say... I know who I am. I know who they say I am. I am -- vampire sucking the system's blood. Ugly black grease to be wipe away, punish, kilt, changed, finded a job for...The author's skills as a poet and performance artist are plain in Precious' monologues. You hear the music of the character's rage and misery even before you completely decode her language on the page.
...n that give me time to walk throo Harlem in/ mornin to school/ mostly pepul goin/ to work/ faces faces/ iron brown/ black glas tears/ not jazzee/ Harlem/ of Langston Huges/ Harlmen Poet Laureeyt!/ this a Harlem done/ took a beating...The other characters in the book stand as a chorus to the central orator, Precious. No other character comes into full dimension, but rather all are the background grid against which Precious casts herself. The character projects an unforgettable shadow against a bleak background. Her story is a tragedy in the classical sense, but horrifically, the circumstances are more realistic than mythological. As with the starkest of tragedies however, glints of sunlight filter through the gloom.
Listen baby, muver love you. Muver not dumb Listen baby: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ thas the alphabet twenty-six letters in all. Them letters make up words. Them words everything.Read this book if you saw a version of this child today and didn't think much about her. Read this book because Federal Aid To Dependent Children doesn't exist any more. Read this book because it is real and we shouldn't look away.