#692 A Sunday Kind of Love- Maxine Clair

#692 A Sunday Kind of Love- Maxine Clair

Thomas is head of deacons at his Parish. His wife died two years ago and he is now with a much younger woman, Wanda. Even though church is very important to him, he has never taken her to a service until now.

He sits up front with the deacon and she in a rear pew. He spends the time sitting coldly still trying to avoid the judgmental eyes of his fellow church goers. He knows what they think, but he still feels right about being with Wanda.

“What really bothers him is this sense of everything and nothing to be said—no words for the kind of thing his mind can’t quite grasp, can’t quite let go of, either.”

After the service, the elders (the men, of course) gather for an important church meeting. Wanda sticks around. It turns out that this meeting is about Thomas and Wanda. Their love (or at least one elicit act of it) has been rumored and disturbed the congregation. But love is eternal and will not be denied, especially under the watchful eyes of God.

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31

#664 The Creation- Maxine Clair

#664 The Creation- Maxine Clair

An outsider should be able to recognize another outsider. Irene has befriended the only girl from Redtown that goes to her school. The community of Redtown is a kind of closed-off religious sect. Irene likes that her new friend is a bit different and she likes that she is from the same town as the strange but intriguing boy that comes by the house each weekend selling chickens.

She is learning a poem called The Creation for an oration competition. She goes to her new friends house in Redtown to practice saying aloud to strangers but they scoff and drive her away, all except Dell, the boy she likes. He is a great storyteller, and they share a lot of time together while she is preparing for the competition. Things happen that force her friend from the school and Dell from coming by anymore, and suddenly her connections to Redtown are all but cut.

She can now focus on the competition, but something bad happens. She learns that the competition is not desegregated yet, and she will not be allowed to compete. It was a the mistake of her teacher—the only white teacher in school—to not take that into consideration. She has never been an outsider, how would she know?

Notable Passage: “We can use the same words you use, but it doesn’t mean we speak the same language.”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#636 Secret Love- Maxine Clair

#636 Secret Love- Maxine Clair

Teenagers have to grow up sometimes, and usually for unfair reasons. Wanda and Irene are neighbors and good friends. Wanda (16) usually lets Irene (14) read her diary. Suddenly she announces that there will be no more diary sharing. Wanda says she is getting too old to write in her diary. The real reason is that she is weighed down with responsibilities beyond her age.

For most of her life, Wanda has been charged with taking care of her brother, Puddin. He is slow and large and needs looking after. Their mother doesn’t help out much. Now, after getting lost and in trouble by himself, he is being taken to a group home away from his family. Wanda is distraught.

Meanwhile Irene, normally the more secretive of the two is dealing with a broken home. Her father is barely employed and her mother is cheating on him (an act Irene herself has witnessed). Irene is caught between wanting to keep this a secret and wanting to show Wanda that she also has tough stuff to deal with. Secrets and maturity.

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#608 The Great War- Maxine Clair

#608 The Great War- Maxine Clair

“What good is love when you sit alone and wait?” Good question. She sits at home, with the kids, while her husband is out working, playing messing around. He is a “good husband” because he pays the bills and provides, but he is a bad husband because he always makes he wait.

“Then there was the next baby. A long wait for a fertile body to make little legs and fingers, good eyes, and the best-shaped head. A Long wait.

And every one of those hundreds of days filled itself up with small waits—for the iron to heat up, the skillet to sizzle, the child to get home from school, Sunday to come, payday, a word, a glance, the truth.”

You can feel the anger, resentment, pride, shame in this piece. The seething emotion of a woman, a mother being wronged—strong, righteous, knowing. She will wait, and wait—and when she is don’t waiting, look out!

Rating: 8-8-9-8 Total= 33

#573 A More Serene Girl- Maxine Clair

#573 A More Serene Girl- Maxine Clair

A horrible thing happened to Dorla: she witnessed her Father killing her Mother. She doesn’t talk to anybody at school, but Irene reaches out and tries to walk with her after school, but she is too shy. Irene’s new best friend is Geraldine, they do walk together after school and often go to Geraldine’s apartment.

The apartment is in a “Tourist Home” a rent-by-the-hour type of place. She lives with her mother in a basement kitchenette, and isn’t allowed to wander into the business side of the house. But kids being kids, the two girls go exploring and peep into the keyholes looking for things they don’t know about.

In a shocking turn, Irene sees her mother in one of the rooms with somebody that isn’t her father. She doesn’t tell Geraldine, doesn’t confront her mother, and gets physically ill due to shock. Her life will never be the same. She no longer wants to be friends with Dorla. Seeing the horrible things that adults do to each other first hand, she wants to stay as far away from that as possible.

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#545 The Roomers- Maxine Clair

#545 The Roomers- Maxine Clair

Lydia and Thomas Pemberton run a boarding house in Rattlebone. They don’t want no riff-raff and now only take in teachers. October Brown is their latest renter. She is young, quiet and proper, a good fit for the house.

When James “Shorty” Wilson comes sniffing around, things start to get dicey. Men are not allowed in the rooms upstairs, so no impropriety happens on the premises, but when Lydia gets word that they’ve been seen together getting close at a honkey-tonk, she sits down and gives October a talking to. Not that any of it is her business, but she takes personal affront to one of her roomers “acting a fool” in public.

October admits to being pregnant, and that is the final straw; Lydia wants her out of the house. Her husband puts his foot down, for the first time, and wants October to stay until the end of the school year, or until she can figure out what to do next. The fight splits the house in two, and when October leaves so does Lydia’s husband. Lydia is sure he’ll come back…I’m not so sure.

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#516 Cherry Bomb- Maxine Clair

#516 Cherry Bomb- Maxine Clair

A hot tragic summer. This is a coming of age story. A group of children, barely teens, maybe a bit younger tramp around looking for trouble, trying to be kids. Eddy has lost an eye from a cherry bomb accident. His sister, the story’s narrator has two prized possessions, the last cherry bomb and her private diary. In that diary she tells about Nick, Eddy’s best friend and the boy that wants to get fresh with her.

This is the summer that they will all remember. This is the summer where they learn that there are worse things than getting hurt by a cherry bomb. As soon as you get old enough to have something to write about in your diary, you may be too old for such childish pursuits.

Notable Passage: “I am in this world, but not of it. I am in this world”

Rating: 7-6-8-7 Total= 28

#489 Water Seeks its Own Level- Maxine Clair

#489 Water Seeks its Own Level- Maxine Clair

The town is on flood alert and James volunteers to haul sandbags down the levee for the Civil Defense crew. He likes the idea; it’s exciting. He doesn’t tell his wife Pearl where he will be, but she’s used to that. James is a wayward soul with a history of dreaming about getting out of town. He likes the chaos and unpredictable storms.

“It felt good to be rushing around in the streets. This desire to be unfettered in the world came down on him sometimes like rain on an arid field. He drank it in, imagining the streets of Chicago or Harlem, places he had never seen.”

He failed every time he tried to leave town, crawling back to Pearl. He wanted to do something big, something dangerous. Almost drowning while hauling sandbags opened his eyes to the harsh truth of life. Like a raging river, something shouldn’t be tested.

“The gulf between the kind of life he sometimes imagined and his life with Pearl seemed as uncrossable as a wild river.”

Rating: 8-8-8-7 Total= 31

#447 October Brown- Maxine Clair

#447 October Brown- Maxine Clair

Rattlebone is a fictional black community just north of Kansans City created by Maxine Clair for this collection. Written to represent the Midwest black lives of the 1950’s, it’ll be interesting to compare it to the Toure’s The Portable Promised Land I started yesterday that represents a fictional black community in the big city. 

October Brown was a teacher in Rattlebone. Her story starts with a fit she had in public as a child when her father attacked her mother. The fit was so crazed that it left her with a mark on her cheek, a devil’s kiss, and a reputation that frightened and intrigued her new students.

“We imagined that a woman surrounded by such lore would have to have a bad temper, a flash fire that could drive her from her desk to yours in a single movement, dislodge you by your measly shoulders, plant you hard on the hardwood floor, tell you in growling underbreaths of wrath to stand up straight…”

It was a big year for Irene, not only because her new teacher wasn’t anywhere nearly as bad as she thought, but because she was about to become a big sister to a new baby brother. Things change quickly though, and change can turn quickly to chaos.

Notable Passage: “Intuition is the guardian of childhood.”

Rating: 8-8-7-7 Total=30