Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks
"Getting Mother's Body" is a novel by Suzan-Lori Parks that draws inspiration from William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying," employing a similar narrative style characterized by multiple perspectives. Set in 1963, the story follows Billy Beede, a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl from West Texas, who embarks on a journey to Arizona to retrieve her mother's remains before a shopping center construction disturbs her burial site. Unlike Faulkner's tale, where the deceased speaks from the coffin, Billy's mother, Willa Mae Beede, expresses her thoughts through song, reflecting her past as a blues singer.
The narrative is enriched by a diverse cast of characters, each joining Billy for their own motives, often driven by material desires. As the journey unfolds, the plot reveals Billy’s evolving understanding of her feelings toward her mother and her relatives, leading to moments of humor and unexpected developments. The novel culminates in a satisfying resolution, marking a departure from Parks's typical endings. Through its exploration of themes such as family, loss, and the quest for identity, "Getting Mother's Body" engages readers with its emotional depth and cultural resonance.
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Getting Mother's Body by Suzan-Lori Parks
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 2003
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Parks admits to being captivated by Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying, a work told through multiple points of view. Getting Mother’s Body uses a similar technique as well as some of Faulkner’s other structural and plot devices. Just as Faulkner’s tale is one of travel (the family is returning mother’s dead body to Jefferson County for burial), so is Parks’s (Billy Beede, with the help of her friends and relatives, must travel to Arizona to exhume her mother’s body before her burial site is destroyed by a new shopping center complex). In Faulkner’s book, the mother speaks from her coffin; the same is true in Parks’s novel, only in this instance, the mother, Willa Mae Beede, sings her thoughts since she had been a blues singer in life. As in the Faulkner original, the voices of the characters in Parks’s novel are clear and distinct, capturing the essence and variability of multiple narrations that Faulkner introduced.
In 1963, when Billy Beede, the sixteen-year-old pregnant heroine, learns that her mother’s body is to be moved before the shopping-center developers begin clearing the land where she is buried, she determines to make the trip from West Texas where she lives to Arizona, not to rescue her mother’s body but to secure the “treasures” that had been buried with her: a pearl necklace and a diamond ring. She is joined by a remarkably diverse cadre of relatives, all on the quest for varying reasons, most being of a money-grubbing nature. Billy’s journey and her motivations for making it shift the closer she gets to her destination as well, as her true feelings not only for her mother but also for all those around her become apparent. The trek is filled with unexpected occurrences and humorous developments. The final resolution is rare for Ms. Parks in that it is satisfying and complete within itself.
Review Sources
Black Issues Book Review 5, no. 4 (July/August, 2003): 54-55.
Booklist 99, no. 17 (May 1, 2003): 1581.
Ebony 58, no. 11 (September, 2003): 28.
Kirkus Reviews 71, no. 6 (March 15, 2003): 422.
Library Journal 128, no. 19 (November 15, 2003): 113-114.
The New York Times, June 3, 2003, p. E1.
The New York Times Book Review 152, no. 52480 (May 11, 2003): 10.
Publishers Weekly 250, no. 20 (May 19, 2003): 54.
Texas Monthly 31, no. 10 (October, 2003): 74-77.
The Women’s Review of Books 20, no. 12 (September, 2003): 16-17.