Book Review COLEMAN HILL Kim Coleman Foote
Thank you to the author Kim Coleman Foote, publishers SJP Lit, and NetGalley for an digital copy. All views are mine.
Opening quote: People will go after you for combining poverty and abuse. . . . [P] eople will say there’s poverty without abuse, and you will never say anything. . . . This is a story about love, you know that. . . . Because we all love imperfectly. —Elizabeth Strout, My Name Is Lucy Barton loc.44
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. This writing is so gorgeous, holy sh-t. The intense beat keeps the book moving even though I haven't read anything this heavy since ROOTS. I can't even pick a passage, at least not yet, because the whole thing is so moving...
2.Foote's descriptions of human state are wonderfully and terribly detailed. For example, accute addiction: You ain’t gotten off the parlor sofa in days, and you know you need to. The state’ll take away your children and the landlord’ll run you out the house if you don’t get back to work, but right now , you can’t move too good. Your limbs feel stuffed with lard. Your head too, and you no longer gotta raise it to smell yourself. Sticky streaks of Four Roses whiskey all over your mouth, but ain’t nobody to see or smell you but the children. loc.118. Miscarriage and assault: Bertha is bleeding from many parts. She feels the warm mushiness between her thighs, glimpsed it through her torn stockings, can taste it in her mouth. And yet , there’s so little pain. loc. 1119
3. She writes a lot about family violence and displaced emotion that expresses in such destructive ways. Check chapter "The Pose"
4. I love the role of faith in this book, it takes many different shapes: Face wet, she slowly pushes herself up to kneeling and peers at the gilt-framed placard of Jesus above the bed. He isn’t, of course, looking at her. He never does. His gaze is fixed perpetually toward his heavenly father. ...Her gaze roams higher, to the ceiling, and she clasps her hands beneath her chin. ...She feels ashamed that she didn’t think to call on Him first for help. Doesn’t Pastor Mobley stress from the Bible, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”? ...And yet she’s turned to other people to solve her problems,... And did the Lord not say, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye”? But the truth of the matter is that some part of her has been holding anger toward Him ever since He called her mama home. And now, for doing the same with Solomon. But you got a plan for everything, don’t you, Father? A plan, she reminds herself, that is beyond her humanly comprehension or control. loc. 572
5. Brilliant use of the second person, I mean really brilliant 🤌 As Jim raved, jabbing his curled belt at you, you’d stand firm and glare at that mean-faced ranting man your husband had done become, and find yourself wanting your maw’s curse to kick in quick. More so when Jim would yank Jebbie away from you. Cuz instead of hitting you like he probably wanted, Jim took out his wrath on your boy. He’d beat Jebbie with the belt, muttering the same things your maw’s husbands use to say about Johnny. He too soft. He cry. You hovers too much. loc. 773
6. Stars truly strong women. After Jim passed, you kept your promise of having one husband, and your neighbors was surprised when you ain’t remarry. Already got a man of the house, you’d think. Don’t need two. Men seemed to disagree. They kept trying to court you. You let yourself get sweet on one for a year or so until he tried to smack you— in public, no less— when you refused his marriage proposal outside the movie theater. You blessed him out and struck his face with the metal edge of your purse, catching him off guard, and kept swinging until his chin got sliced and he fell to the pavement. Then you wiped off your purse with your hankie, muttering how he made you late for the movie, and it starred Clark Gable, your favorite white man on Earth too. loc. 799
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. It's a little difficult to establish, without some backtracking and such, the timeline of the chapters relative to each other, and how the characters in each section relate to each other. Or to the narrator, which is perhaps most important since some sections are in written in second person. Isthis the point? Being lost in personal history? Lost from it?
Rating: 5
Recommend? Yes!
Ratings:
Cover: 4.2
Concept: 4.7
Character Work: 5
Settings / World Work: 5
Narrative: 5
Pacing: 4
Plot / Logic: 4.3
Ending: 5
Steam: n/a
Style: 5
Overall Rating: 4.69 rounded up to 5
Star Rating: 5
Recommend? Omg Yes!
Finished: August 20 2023
Opening quote: People will go after you for combining poverty and abuse. . . . [P] eople will say there’s poverty without abuse, and you will never say anything. . . . This is a story about love, you know that. . . . Because we all love imperfectly. —Elizabeth Strout, My Name Is Lucy Barton loc.44
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. This writing is so gorgeous, holy sh-t. The intense beat keeps the book moving even though I haven't read anything this heavy since ROOTS. I can't even pick a passage, at least not yet, because the whole thing is so moving...
2.Foote's descriptions of human state are wonderfully and terribly detailed. For example, accute addiction: You ain’t gotten off the parlor sofa in days, and you know you need to. The state’ll take away your children and the landlord’ll run you out the house if you don’t get back to work, but right now , you can’t move too good. Your limbs feel stuffed with lard. Your head too, and you no longer gotta raise it to smell yourself. Sticky streaks of Four Roses whiskey all over your mouth, but ain’t nobody to see or smell you but the children. loc.118. Miscarriage and assault: Bertha is bleeding from many parts. She feels the warm mushiness between her thighs, glimpsed it through her torn stockings, can taste it in her mouth. And yet , there’s so little pain. loc. 1119
3. She writes a lot about family violence and displaced emotion that expresses in such destructive ways. Check chapter "The Pose"
4. I love the role of faith in this book, it takes many different shapes: Face wet, she slowly pushes herself up to kneeling and peers at the gilt-framed placard of Jesus above the bed. He isn’t, of course, looking at her. He never does. His gaze is fixed perpetually toward his heavenly father. ...Her gaze roams higher, to the ceiling, and she clasps her hands beneath her chin. ...She feels ashamed that she didn’t think to call on Him first for help. Doesn’t Pastor Mobley stress from the Bible, “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”? ...And yet she’s turned to other people to solve her problems,... And did the Lord not say, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye”? But the truth of the matter is that some part of her has been holding anger toward Him ever since He called her mama home. And now, for doing the same with Solomon. But you got a plan for everything, don’t you, Father? A plan, she reminds herself, that is beyond her humanly comprehension or control. loc. 572
5. Brilliant use of the second person, I mean really brilliant 🤌 As Jim raved, jabbing his curled belt at you, you’d stand firm and glare at that mean-faced ranting man your husband had done become, and find yourself wanting your maw’s curse to kick in quick. More so when Jim would yank Jebbie away from you. Cuz instead of hitting you like he probably wanted, Jim took out his wrath on your boy. He’d beat Jebbie with the belt, muttering the same things your maw’s husbands use to say about Johnny. He too soft. He cry. You hovers too much. loc. 773
6. Stars truly strong women. After Jim passed, you kept your promise of having one husband, and your neighbors was surprised when you ain’t remarry. Already got a man of the house, you’d think. Don’t need two. Men seemed to disagree. They kept trying to court you. You let yourself get sweet on one for a year or so until he tried to smack you— in public, no less— when you refused his marriage proposal outside the movie theater. You blessed him out and struck his face with the metal edge of your purse, catching him off guard, and kept swinging until his chin got sliced and he fell to the pavement. Then you wiped off your purse with your hankie, muttering how he made you late for the movie, and it starred Clark Gable, your favorite white man on Earth too. loc. 799
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. It's a little difficult to establish, without some backtracking and such, the timeline of the chapters relative to each other, and how the characters in each section relate to each other. Or to the narrator, which is perhaps most important since some sections are in written in second person. Isthis the point? Being lost in personal history? Lost from it?
Rating: 5
Recommend? Yes!
Ratings:
Cover: 4.2
Concept: 4.7
Character Work: 5
Settings / World Work: 5
Narrative: 5
Pacing: 4
Plot / Logic: 4.3
Ending: 5
Steam: n/a
Style: 5
Overall Rating: 4.69 rounded up to 5
Star Rating: 5
Recommend? Omg Yes!
Finished: August 20 2023
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