Let the Lion Eat Straw

This novel is by Ellease Southerland, now known as Ebele Oseye. I picked up this book because of one very simple description I saw online: "Mamma Habblesham, an elderly midwife, lovingly tends to Abeba, a sweet little 6-year-old whom she has raised since the girl was two months old." I should have kept reading the reviews/summaries. There are few novels that I have found that have midwives as real characters. I was disappointed (for all of two seconds) when I realized that this book doesn't either. We know that Mamma is a midwife, and that she's a good one, but that's it. In fact, Abeba's life with Mamma pretty much ends 15 pages into the novel. But I kept reading after that because the novel is beautiful. It's short, and therefore words have been chosen carefully, and I like that. But that's the least of it.

I loved the way Southerland portrayed the men in the novel. Abeba's father was not afraid to love his daughter. The boys on the stoop were respectful, genuinely kind, and very supportive of Abeba, all the while Abeba's mother pointed out that they were drunks and needed some Jesus in their life. Isn't that the way people really are? It seems so rare that people are either one thing or another, a sinner or the saved. I loved how a whole Brooklyn community of poor folks paid hard earned money to gather at the school to see the play that Abeba's mother wrote where black men were kings, and astrologers, and magicians (a revamped story of King Nebuchadnezzar and David)...a play that cost 50 cents for one person, but 25 cents for two.

And I loved Abeba's resiliency. Her husband turned out to be certifiably crazy, but she stood right by him. They had 15 children, all of whom where exceptionally smart and they built business and a home and a family with very little.

It really was very beautiful. There was some horror, but what life doesn't have any? Abeba was headed for great things (ie Julliard) but she gave it up for this life with children and a husband. And to me, that was some of the horror, but what I liked about it was that at the center of this novel was a relationship between mother and daughter, and when the daughter became a woman, she took responsibility for the life she chose and made decisions accordingly.

There's so much truth in this novel, so much revelancy now, almost 30 years later.