Third Girl from the Left – Martha Southgate

This story, is about a young woman, Tamara, in LA that aspires to be a film director telling the story of her mother, Angela’s, journey to become a famous actor. The book begins in the perspective of the daughter and changes to Angela rather quickly. In this section, we learn of her life in Tulsa and decision to move to LA where she then finds herself performing sexual favors to be an extra in films, or just because she feels like it. After completing Angela’s section I read the book summary where it states her “unplanned pregnancy derails her plans for stardom”. Yes, an unplanned pregnancy will do that but her decision to partake in recreational drugs and multi-partner sexual activity wasn’t helping. Quite frankly, I was not interested in the story of her life because it is so heavily laden with sexual activity and alluded struggle with sexual identity. Maybe it’s because of society’s acceptance of homosexuality at the time or her upbringing from which she rebels, but Angela, at no point, tries other avenues to further her film career and I think she was looking for an out, and got it, when she got pregnant.

The next section is Mildred, Angela’s mother, and I hope it becomes more interesting. It has taken much longer than expected to complete this novel and I will not be reading it past the first of January.

If you have gotten further than I, and have an alternative incite to share, please do. Otherwise, the next novel will be Powder Necklace by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond. Until next time…..Mella

Welcome

I love reading. Particularly stories about and from the perspective of women. Seeing what they see, feeling how they feel, not because the experiences are different from my own but because they are so familiar. While the settings are indeed different, the characters are different, the emotions are the same. So I read to escape into a different world to find those things that are the similar.

A few of my top authors are Toni Morrison, Pearl Cleage, and Alice Walker (in order of discovery). Their honest approach to human emotion and unveiled exposure behind what we believe to be beautiful or ugly forces me to re-evaluate my perspective on what is typical or normal, which does not exist in their work. While there are many other authors that I admire, I realized that after reading all that the above have written, I was left empty searching for new authors for my particularity. And I have found a few. The following are novels I read recently and thoroughly enjoyed:

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate

Mellanation will reveal the authors that I discover (as in new to me), their stories and my experience reading them. Each novel will be announced prior to my reading of it. But please note, I am not conducting formal reviews, do not read novel summaries nor descriptions prior to its reading and will reveal the ending of the novel (for discussion purposes) when complete. This week I will be reading Third Girl from the Left by Martha Southgate and I welcome you to read along and share your perspectives with me. Until next time….Mella