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Somebody Else's Mama (Harvest Book)
Somebody Else's Mama - Harvest Book
Author: David Haynes
As she struggles to move from antagonism to common ground with Miss Xenobia Kezee, her sick, elderly, cantankerous mother-in-law, Paula Johnson confronts her own mother’s death and her husband’s detachment from the emotional life of his family.
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ISBN-13: 9780156004084
ISBN-10: 0156004089
Publication Date: 4/15/1996
Pages: 360
Rating:
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
 2

3.5 stars, based on 2 ratings
Publisher: Harvest Books
Book Type: Paperback
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review
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reviewed Somebody Else's Mama (Harvest Book) on + 14 more book reviews
I liked the book a lot especially towards the end. Recommended.
reviewed Somebody Else's Mama (Harvest Book) on + 71 more book reviews
Would be good if you are facing caring for elderly parents, or are trying to rekindle a marriage.

From Publishers Weekly
Haynes's novel probes the dynamics and tensions in three generations of a middle-class black family living under one roof.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Haynes lovingly describes a world both insular and nurturing, but one that appears to be vanishing: middle-class life in a small, exclusively African American Missouri town. Paula and Al Johnson are living the American dream. Al is a successful small-town newspaper publisher about to launch a foray into local politics, and Paula is a high-school teacher. Their adolescent twin sons, Tim and Tom, though studies in contrast, are good kids with bright futures. Into this stable life comes Miss Kezee, Al's aging mother, who no longer seems to be able to take care of herself, but whom Paula adamantly resists placing in a nursing home. Miss Kezee is angry at being removed from her home in St. Paul, Minnesota, distrustful of Paula, and miserable to the twins. Miss Kezee hates the small town and the house in which Al and Paula live; it was where she lived with her much-hated first husband, Al's father. As each major character narrates the story in alternating segments, the reader sees the family take its first steps toward understanding and acceptance. Recommended for most fiction collections.


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