Mama Day

by Gloria Naylor

Book Overview

On the island of Willow Springs, off the Georgia coast, the powers of healer Mama Day are tested by her great niece, Cocoa, a stubbornly emancipated woman endangered by the island's darker forces. A... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679721819
• Release Date: April 1989
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.9" x 0.7" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

I was Disappointed

I know this writer and I expected a powerful story but I was left disappointed. This story needs narration and should have been told in chronological order. I read many pages before I even knew the voice speaking. I must give her kudos for creating a fictional town and the deep concentration with details that seem so real . There was too much sociological impact which took away from the story. I was so disappointed since I could not tell how George died. The swinging back and forth from Sapphira to Mama Day was confusing and annoying. I have read other books by this author but this one is a bit out there for me and it dragged on forever. I couldn't wait for it to end.

What a day! What a day!

I try very hard not to use the word "genius" when describing or reviewing books and stories that I read because I think it takes genius to recognize genius. I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a genius. Words almost fail me when trying to think of something to write that will make others understand what I mean and what I FEEL about this book, this story. I read it slowly because that is the way the story unfolded to me. It couldn't be rushed. It refused to be rushed because there was so much it had to tell. The simplicity of it is what makes it so ethereal and larger than life. Gloria Naylor has a grip and taskmaster like command of language and can bend and shape it to her will. This book has left an indelible mark on my psyche, my soul. The love story was just one component of the book and not even the best part, but the story as a whole wraps itself around you tightly. It rocks you gently and leaves you reeling. Just like finding a lover such as that, I know it will be a long time before I find another story that touches me so deeply.

Naylor Gives Us Reason to Rejoice About the "Day"

Never have I ever read a novel so richly fulfilling to the human soul, and to the human sense of what matters in life as "Mama Day."Readers beware: this book is best for those weary souls who have succumbed to sarcasm, cynicism and pessimism growing like weeds around the heart.Naylor may begin her story with a little island called Willow Springs, and she may tempt us and draw us in with promises of adventure, history, a search for long-buried treasure and mystery, but ultimately this book is about faith. It is not your everyday brand of faith that may be conjured when it seems there is a hardship abrewing. No, this is the type of deep down, didn't-know-you-had-it-still-burning-within-you, long forgotten, but still important brand of faith in humanity, and in love which makes each day worth living. Lots of us have lost it. Lots of us have forgotten that it makes this life a lot easier to live. Lots of us have given up on ever seeing it again.However, with Naylor's stunning, and accurate comprehension of the way love exists between two hearts, no soiled soul will go untilled. It is almost as if Miss Gloria had the privilege of serving an internship with love itself at an early age. She writes what we think. She writes what we feel. She does all this, sometimes, before we have ever thought it or felt it. She does this without knowing if we ever have thought it or felt it. But when you put this book down, you will think it, you will feel it.The way that Naylor dualistically narrates this book, whether it is an exchange between George and Cocoa, or a discourse between Mama Day and Cocoa, gives us the chance to believe that the same center exists at the core of every human soul. She bares her knowledge of human frailty to us to make us understand that we are not alone in our struggles against time, space, and even faith itself. This book changed the way I think and believe. This book will change the way you meet, and acquaint yourself with people. I could never suggest anything better for one's self than reading "Mama Day."

A Poignant and Powerful Love Story!

Mama Day is an exquisitely well-written story! Naylor does a stellar job of giving us a "classical novel" with a complex plot which includes doublings and foreshadowings and the folk tale combination. It's a contemporary love story, a timeless generational saga and tale of the supernatural. The storyline spans two worlds. One is the southern island Willow Springs, inhabited solely by the descendants of slaves a place with its own rules and exempt from many of the racist laws of the mainland. The other world is New York City with its millions of people and what seems like madness everywhere. The two worlds meet when Ophelia aka Cocoa(Willow Springs) and George(New York City) meet and eventually fall in love and get married. Of course, it was the intervention of Mama Day who brought them together. I loved Mama Day the nearly 100 year old great-aunt who helped to raise Cocoa. Mama Day was said to know the working of roots, herbal cures and could summon lightning with her walking stick...uum some thought she could even make lighting strike in the same place twice. Mama Day was wise beyond her days and was said to know the true story of "the great, grand Mother" Sapphira Wade, who in 1823 persuaded her master to deed the island to his slaves and supposedly bore him seven sons in just a thousand days...yeah right she had 7 sons in 2.7 years...hmm...that's definitely supernatural. Anywho then Sapphira Wade went onto to kill her master before she vanished in a burst of flame. And since that event there's been a lot of 18 & 23 going on an enigma of an island called Willow Spring. But while Mama's Day world is steeped in superstition and the supernatural, George's world is one of logic, the present and city life. And unfortunately because George cannot believe what he can't understand the two worlds will clash for him.Naylor's writing is ambitious and complex yet smooth, fluid and compelling in Mama Day. Naylor expertly explores and effects several kinds of reconciliation: the rural past and the urban present; myth and history; individuals and communities; faith and logic; the living and the dead. Naylor provides much insight and wit regarding how we should live but most importantly we take away "everybody wants to be right in a world where there ain't no right or wrong to be found." The characters are colorful and sometimes reminiscent of folks we know. I loved rereading this book because there was so much more I discovered the second time around. Gloria Naylor takes a romance and infuses it with the magic,mystery and tragedy that accompanies true love. MAMA DAY has strong political tones, lively social commentary, and yet still manages to warm the heart. I will probably read this book again and again as it's quite simply a great book!

Gloria Naylor is bad to the bone, that's all I can say

Ms. Naylor is the woman!!!! This book was required reading for an undergraduate English class and let me tell you after years and years of required reading this is the only book I felt was worth the time and the money I spent. Ms. Naylor is a great writer. She has such a great sense of character development. She has great descriptions of people and places she has a way of making you feel like you are right there with the characters. I would say this book is almost, better than the Women of Brewster Place, which was an excellent read also. Naylor is a great writer, and this book deserves more than five stars.!!!!!!

My Favorite Book Ever.

Gloria Naylor is a master storyteller. Her characters are vividly drawn, her humor is by turns laugh-out-load funny or subtlely sarcastic, and her prose quite often caused this reader to sit back and savor the sheer creativity, beauty and freshness of the images Ms. Naylor creates. She uses an interesting narrative technique where two chapters describe the same events, only one is from the perspective of Cocoa and the next from the perspective of George, the niece and 'nephew-in-law' of the title character. This creates a compelling love story, where the reader is allowed into the minds of both participants. Mama Day, the title character and a wonderfully realized force of nature, is the matriarch of both the Day family and the entire population of Willow Springs, an island loosely a part of the United States but not any particular state. This setting seems reminiscent of the Gullah Islands, where African-Americans have had freedom, land, and relative isolation since the early 1800's, and it allows Naylor to create characters who appear to be much more victorious over life than in some other novels by African-American authors. This novel is not about suffering with dignity. Rather, the inhabitants of Willow Springs have an idea there's something not quite right with those on the 'mainland', ie the rest of the country. In many ways, they appear to be right! This is a masterpiece of contemporary literature, a pleasure to experience. "Mama Day" is an entertaining and original look at family, community, and love. With a litte voodoo sprinkled in for good measure.