Push the novel is pure poetry crafted by Sapphire about a girl who never gets the guy, instead she gets HIV and two babies, one with Down’s syndrome, from her father.
How does one tell such a sad tale based loosely on the life of one of the author’s students? Sapphire’s strategy is simple — she uses Precious’ words to tell her story. Many readers may find this off-putting, but it is also refreshing.
Sapphire uses BVE (black vernacular English/Ebonics) heard in the halls of Harlem public schools to tell Precious Jones’ story. The author’s intimate knowledge and familiarity with this dialect does not breed contempt for the speakers or for the written words produced by illiterate boys and girls.
Push’s metaphors and language are melodious, memorable and outlandish. The heroine begins life as a wounded soldier who is handed a Purple Heart, a true survivor and not just an incest survivor. She is also a survivor of New York City public education.
How does a dark-skinned, ugly, obese, unloved, abused black girl confront the burden of parental abuse? It's starkness has no resonance. We cannot comprehend it. How does she cope?
Precious has many coping skills and strategies: profanity, day dreaming, drama queen and lying to herself and others. She revisits the details of her abuse whenever she thinks of her “parents.”
Precious is in a class all by herself because her mind is not on the lesson it is on a treadmill. And treadmill-like are her thoughts and recollections of dad’s nocturnal visits. She is walking, talking and revisiting the sex that accompanies the abuse. Her mind bookmarks that page! She is talking and staring into space but never turning the page on it. It is all about sex.
It makes a nest in her uncombed, nappy hair. She cannot untangle it. It leaves her stomach in knots and her breathing ceases — suspending in colorful animation as she annihilates Carl Jones with wishful thinking for the millionth time.
Carl, her biological father appears in her bed with weapons of war at the ready. He shoots her too many times to count. Their encounters on the battlefield and his nonstop bullets leave her in an addictive daze, beaten but not dead.
Because of the subject matter Push is filled with narration of ritual-like molestation that kills Precious’ ability to pay attention in class. Her confusion over sexual gratification interferes with learning. She holds a degree in Kama sutra, but an idiot IQ in English. So, she must start her linguistic journey at the beginning. The road begins with the alphabet in an alternative school.
Article comments
1 - Carole McDonnell
YAY, Sapphire! Great review, Heloise. Thanks. -C