MAMA SAID

A set of linked stories map the lives of a Black family in Louisville, Kentucky, tracing the generational effects of addiction, poverty, and mental illness.

At the heart of the book is the often fraught relationship between mothers and daughters—always complicated but made especially so by the unpredictable and deceitful behaviors typical of those suffering from addiction. Gentry maps the ways an unstable mother can unmoor her daughter, and how a girl’s innocence is dissolved by the imperative to survive and protect her vulnerable mother: “You are starting to realize that you have no solution for your mother’s depression. There is nothing you can say. Nothing you can do. You will never save her.” In “A Satisfying Meal,” the sharp contrast between two families at Thanksgiving provides an insight into not only the wealth disparity of the Black community, but also into various political divides. At the Thompson family’s dinner, everyone is seated and served formally at the table; JayLynn—who's attending for the first time as Nigel Thompson’s girlfriend—is subtly interrogated about her intellectual pursuits at college; and the use of the N-word represents an egregious blasphemy. Meanwhile, at JayLynn’s aunt’s house, where she and Nigel go afterward, family members eat without ceremony, use the N-word freely, and joke around. The absence of JayLynn’s mother and the eventual departure of her aunts to buy drugs draws attention to the relentless mundanity of addiction and depression—and the ways these illnesses impact families. In “A Good Education,” two young men who grew up together reunite, but now one sells the drugs the other's mother is addicted to, seemingly without making the connection: “Your moms is like my moms...I mean...you think she’s using?” In “A New World,” JayLynn’s 16-year-old cousin, Zaria, goes into labor with the baby she'd hoped would deter her mother, Dee, from feeding her addiction, only to have Dee leave the hospital before the baby arrives, going in search of the next high. Gentry steadfastly refuses to reduce her characters to their misery, imbuing them instead with wit, loyalty, and humor.

A celebration of Black family life that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.