Some Sing Some Cry A Novel

Posted In: For Colored Girls

Wilson Lovstad says...

In the enduring tradition of great African-American literature reminiscent of such luminary women writers as Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, sisters Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza have blended their voices to sing as one in co-authorship of a brilliant kaleidoscope of heritage and culture ~ Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel.



Never do the authors miss a beat in this factual and fictional account of African-American life spanning seven generations of the Mayfield family.With dialogue which is authentic and convincing and often capturing the innermost thoughts of its colorful characters, the authors deliver a compelling narrative in a single harmonious voice and not once does that voice stray off key.Theirs is a powerful story driven by the rhythm of life, beginning at the emancipation of slavery and proceeding until the present day 21st century. The theme is exemplary ~ "Slavery leaves telling marks lasting generations, still every word out of our mouths is a song."



From the very first pages on, music pulsates from every beautifully composed sentence.The prose is so lyrical it sings. The first chapter, vastly rhapsodic and lushly poetic, is a rainbow of perfectly chosen words in celebration of color and every rich hue of blackness.I was compelled to immediately reread Chapter One over and over again for the shear beauty of its language ~ the sweeping poetic prose is so arresting.



In fact, color and music give solid structure to this very unique novel of African-American history and culture. For me it is was like reading the libretto of a contemporary lyric opera; I thought of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess often. The pacing is cleverly set to a progression in musical tempo, ranging the entire spectrum from primitive rhythms pounded out on hollow gourds and spirited shouts arising from the ancient soul to the gentle Negro spirituals, and on to jazz, R&B, Motown, hip-hop, rock-n-roll, folk music and songs of protest. Even great classical and opera are blended passionately throughout this superb story. Every sentence reads with a musical flow which drives the storyline and causes every page to pulsate with passion, spirit and love.



Half way through Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel when the slow spiritual pace of country life in the Old South explodes during World War I into an undulating new age of city life, fast living and newly born jazz, a very telling conversation takes place between two major characters, Osceola and Europe~



"The world is changing, Osceola.Somehow what has captured it is the music-our music.It changes up, improvises, shines, groans and growls-it speaks to the soul-because it comes from there." The lieutenant's body shook violently as if another spell or frenzy were about to descend upon him, but it was a rapture."Take away from a man everything that he knows, his family, his name, his land, his language"-Europe drew up his arms as if shackled-"his freedom-what is he to do?-He sings.He dances.He plays duh bones.He wails...It's our path, our way out, Osceola.It is the door and the key.Ain't it grand?"



It seems from this point on in the narrative that the pacing picks up along with the music.The first half, representing the earlier Mayfield generations, is almost a different book.Story is emphasized more, told slowly with more depth and detail. The characters are more deeply developed and more attention is made to them.The second half following World War I is paced more briskly, following the rhythm of a more modern, hurried life with less story and character development but a dizzying amount of musical name dropping. Still, I continued to find the narrative engaging and entertaining.



The story is so factual and the history so authentic and raw that at times I found myself ashamed of my own white skin and the disgraceful part my race played in African-American history.I don't believe that was the point the authors were intending however. Rather that there's a place for every reader inside the skin and the minds of the powerful characters of the Mayfield family. Ntozake Shange andIfa Bayeaza have created in seven generations of the Mayfield family a celebration of Black heritage, a novel of affirmation, a story of love.It is really a song of life's joys and sorrows, of identity and pride, of resilience and faith.



It is in the telling of this story that makes it unique and so captivating.I was so completely taken in that I couldn't put it down. Some Sing, Some Cry: A Novel is brilliant storytelling and I enthusiastically recommend it!

Posted on November 21, 2010

Daryl Jesse says...

"Some Sing, Some Cry" follows one family from the end of slavery through the events of the Civil Rights Movement and ends in the current century.The novel's text provides a somewhat simplified, yet comprehensive overview of the reasons for the Civil Rights Movement and its impact on lives of both U.S. citizens and expatriates.Music and song play an important role in the lives of the characters - like an aria, some individuals will soar above the obstacles they encounter. However, other characters will withdraw into themselves, shedding tears and giving up on the future, on their dreams, and on life.



Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza have created interesting female characters whose strengths and weaknesses affect not only the particular individual's life, but also the lives of others with whom they come into contact.Bette Mayfield, the family matriarch, influences her family through the seven generations by virtue of her courage and determination.Eudora, her daughter, was initially a strong presence in the story, but was lost as the narrative progressed into her own daughter's lives.Reintroduced in a latter section of the book as a successful businesswoman, it would have been interesting to learn more of the direction her life had taken and of the obstacles she had overcome in order to achieve her success.



Eula Walker, Eudora's daughter, abandons her dreams of an education for family reasons and provides the reader with an overall sense of her resignation to life's circumstances. Her life reflects, in many ways, those of other African-American women whose potential was extinguished by societal dictates.In the next generation, Cinnamon Turner, Eula's niece, must abandon her dream of an operatic career due to health reasons; she also resigns herself to marriage and children.Mayfield Turner and her niece Memphis Walker both refuse to bow to adversity and follow their dream of a musical career; however, both will turn their backs on family to do so.Like her mother Eudora's story, Mayfield Turner's life also deserves to be expanded into a complete novel.



The male characters, by and large, were ineffectual and weak or were engaged in criminal activities.Two male protagonists who stood out and deserved further exploration were Jesse Walker and Deacon Holstein.These men represent the two sides of a coin - Jesse was a minister involved in the Civil Rights Movement and Deacon, a reformed criminal, was a successful Harlem businessman. Osceola Turner, Deacon's brother, and Mayfield's childhood companion was a courageous man who lost his life because of prejudice; he was also a strong presence in the novel and a moving force in the lives of others.



The authors' use of vernacular imparts a real sense of the characters' position in the social hierarchy and of the overall environment in which the story takes place.Further, as the novel progressed, the use of vernacular changed to reflect the changes taking place in a character's life and circumstances.However, I found the carry-over of vernacular into the narrative to be distracting, but not because it was not grammatically correct. That technique was applied inconsistently - the narrative would often switch, on the same page, from vernacular to formal, written English without apparent reason.This technique may have been deliberate, or it may have been the result of the novel's having two authors.It did not, as used, strengthen the overall impact of the story.



I rated "Some Sing, Some Cry" as a four-star read because it was very good, but not so compelling that I could not put it down.Unlike Alice Walker's "The Color Purple," the characters in "Some Sing, Some Cry" did not elicit a strong feeling of empathy for their person or sympathy for the travails they endured.There were points in the narrative that seemed to drone on and on.The novel's ending sections seemed hurried as if there was a publication deadline looming and the authors did not have time to flesh out the storyline.Perhaps a tighter editing of the entire text and rewrite of the concluding section would strengthen the book.While I can recommend this novel to those who enjoy multi-generational stories or those who have an interest in a fictionalized account of the Civil Rights Movement and events leading to it, I am not sure it will appeal to a majority of readers."Some Sing, Some Cry" is a very good book, but not a great one; it is, however, worth taking the time to read.

Posted on November 22, 2010

Sanora Garriepy says...

Must read!Bayeza & Shange work together to weave a tale that brought me to tears and laughter - literally!Having seen plays written by both authors, I was impressed by the ways in which Bayeza's skillfully crafted historic drama and Shange's poetic voice both come through in the prose.I, of course, identify with Liberty, the DJing great-granddaughter of the enslaved women who begin Some Sing, Some Cry - as a hip hop lover, it means so much to have the culture I call my own woven into the history that was mine to begin with.All of that to say - read it!For a hefty book, it flies in all the right ways...

Posted on November 22, 2010

Rodrick Drzewicki says...

A lot of the reviews already written for this book include much of the same thoughts I had, so I'll try not to rehash all the same things. Basically: the book was definitely worth reading, however it was not an easy read - and I mean that in several ways. I'm someone who, no matter how long the book is, will stay up through the night reading if I'm really drawn in. Unfortunately, that happened less and less for me with this book.



In terms of style, there are passages that are pure poetry and just absolutely magical; there were whole sections that I wanted to markup so I could reference them again. There were also some parts that were somewhat difficult for me to understand; especially towards the beginning, which is at the furthest point back in history that the book covers and thus, for me, had the most unfamiliar language. I would definitely not classify this last as a criticism, however - it further enhances the experience of reading the book and the feeling of authenticity - but I wanted to mention it.



SOME SING, SOME CRY deals with many complex issues, with two of the most difficult ones being rape and incest. The lives of these characters are filled with tragedies and each character - no matter how flawed - impresses you with their strength just for the sheer fact that they survived and lived through. Aside from the writing, the characters were the strongest aspect of the book; they were also the weakest.



Shange and Bayeza do an unbelievable job of creating an extensive cast of characters, all of whom are three-dimensional: complex yet accessible, flawed yet sympathetic. The characters are so well-written that they are truly brought to life and you feel sucked into their struggles, passions, failures, and dreams. It is right at that point that, for almost all of them, the authors really let the reader - or at least this reader - down. Just as we begin to feel like we understand the character, just as we begin to feel invested in their life and what will happen to them, just as we begin to fully root for them and hope that maybe *their* path will be different - they almost disappear, are relegated to the place of "the past," and the next generation takes over. It's a pattern that seemed to happen repeatedly and it was disconcerting and felt somewhat frenetic.



In a way, it's a testament to their skills as storytellers that when we are drawn away from one storyline and thrown into the next one, we are there clamoring to go back, to get more information and stay with that person, that family, that pair, just a little longer. I wasn't sure if there was perhaps a symbolic reason that this occurred, if it was a simple matter of there being only so many pages that you can have before the book becomes too long to be sell-able, or if it was another issue altogether. It *was* an issue however - at least for me.



All that being said, the very depth and breadth of this novel is amazing in and of itself, and the writing skill and compelling characters make it worth a read. "A read" seems a completely inadequate phrase, for reading SOME SING, SOME CRY is truly an experience - one that is undoubtedly worth having, despite the book's faults.

[This review is of an advanced copy format of the book]

Posted on November 23, 2010

Royce Gaydosh says...

This book reads more like a collection of short stories than a cohesive tale about a family. My main problem is that as soon as a character reaches a crucial point in her life, the story jumps ahead by years and decades and moves on to someone else. It happens with Eudora in a couple of instances but most notably after her husband leaves her. She was in dire straights, but we hear nothing about her again until her oldest daughter returns to South Carolina for a funeral.It happens with Eudora's daugher Lizzie who flees the south in hopes of making it in show business only to wind up living with relatives in New York while waiting for her big break. Lizzie comes face to face with a man from her past who hurt her and her family immeasurably, so she leaves the country. We hear bits and pieces about what happened to her once she left America, but it's not nearly enough. The same thing happens with Lizzie's daughter Cinnamon. Cinnamon goes from being enrolled in a graduate opera program at Julliard to being a married woman with three children with very little exploration of how her life evolved.



The writing is very good and the stories are interesting, but I do think that the book suffers for trying to combine all these characters into one book. Also, the ending is pretty anti-climactic.

Posted on November 23, 2010

Cassey Abrell says...

SOME SING, SOME CRY will have you humming, crying, laughing, gasping, and the like as you read. I read this BAB (Big Ass Book), as coined by Tee Royal of Rawsistaz(TM), in a total of 6 hours as I couldn't put it down, particularly reading Lizzie's story, a character I came to know, who reminded me of Josephine Baker.



The story opens with Betty, who we later come to know as Mah Bette, and her granddaughter Eudora, as they are packing to leave Sweet Tamarind, the plantation on which the Mayfield family lived for generations. We then follow the Mayfields in this wonderful saga, which brings us up to the 21st century, and I tell you that even knowing this is a book with many pages, for me they could have written 500 more and I would have continued on reading as I didn't want the story about this family to end.



While I mentioned Lizzie, there are MANY wonderful characters and some not so likeable that I wanted to smack ... no knock out as I read, but hey that's the mark of a wonderful book; one that causes you to engage with the people they are writing about.



You do NOT want to miss reading this wonderful book of a family saga, from slavery to the other side of the world, written by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza, who together have written a timeless work of literature that I will read again. The question we ask as readers "who writes "real" literature any more" is answered in this offering.



Reviewed by Linda Chavis

for The RAWSISTAZ(TM) Reviewers

Posted on November 24, 2010

Lorelei Marsh says...

Spanning history from Reconstruction to the Hip Hop Era, sisters Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza's new novel "Some Sing, Some Cry" is a sprawling recreation of the African-American experience through the lives of seven generations of a family, with the emphasis on the strong matriarchal line. Through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance, both World Wars and Vietnam, desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement, "Some Sing, Some Cry" is a stunning evocation of the times, the trials and tribulations, the bravery and cowardice, the injustices and triumphs, the hate and loves and the evolution of white attitudes and black music.



Thirty years after her masterpiece "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" (brought to movie screens earlier this year) Ms. Shange, in a perfectly modulated duet with Ms. Bayeza, proves again to be a writer of such grace and power that the reader is compelled to read and savor every character, every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence, every phrase, and each individual word. She and her sister have gifted the reader with prose of such startling sumptuousness that every one of the readers' senses is fully engaged by the sights, the smells, the tastes, the stories and, most of all, the sounds. Every episode takes place with it's own soundtrack of seminal artists, just the mention of their names creates a whirlwind of sounds in the reader's imagination, almost as if there was a CD player in the room as you read.



Ms. Shange and Ms. Bayeza have created a panoply of fascinating characters, each with a distinctive voice, each finely drawn, distinctive and memorable and they have taken the various threads and woven a beautiful tapestry about a fully credible, historically accurate, multifaceted family and the relationships to each other and the world changing around them.



"Some Sing, Some Cry" is that modern publishing rarity, true literature that makes most bestsellers seem slapdash and shallow. Perhaps the best recommendation I can offer is that "Some Sing, Some Cry" clocks in at 558 pages and I was sad that it was done. I will miss these characters.

Posted on November 26, 2010

Rikki Parrales says...

Overall, this was a beautiful novel. I loved the variety of characters and settings. I liked being able to watch the characters develop over long stretches of time as their roles and relationships in life changed.



My only criticism is that sometimes I was left wanting more. I felt like some of the characters' story lines were sacrificed so that we could move on to the stories of the next generation. I suppose that is just what happens when you try to cover several generations in one book, but, at times, I really wasn't ready to let certain plot lines go yet.



At any rate, this book was well worth the read, and I highly recommend it to others.

Posted on November 27, 2010

Selina Rebuck says...

I almost gave up on this book halfway through; I actually did take a break for a couple of weeks.I am so glad I went back and finished it.



This is the multigenerational saga of an African American family, descended from both slaves and plantation owners in the Gullah islands of South Carolina.The authors themselves are of Gullah heritage, and I think that certainly lends a very authentic feel to the novel.The novel begins with the end of slavery and ends with the present day.Of necessity, it is long-- nearly 600 pages.Music and language help to tell the story not only of the family but of a piece of African American history.The authors have carefully studied the vernacular of the time, and the characters' way of speaking changes as time progresses, and as characters move from country to city and even cross oceans.Music, too, evolves with the times and provides a backdrop for two wars and the civil rights movement.The prose itself is often rhythmic and musical.



The first half of the novel moves much slower than the second.About halfway through it felt a bit plodding so I put it down.I came back to it with some reluctance but once World War I and the Jazz Age hit, the pace picked up phenomenally and I couldn't put it down.



What's most impressive about this novel, is that the family and culture itself becomes the main character.With a multigenerational saga, there is no single person who serves as a main character. I thought this would be a sticking point for me, as character development is vital to me in a story.But in spite of the short relationships with each character, I felt a deep connection to the family and to the larger themes that they represented in the novel.Most fascinating was the exploration of how various characters responded to slavery, oppression, racism, and other themes-- as the title states, "some sing, some cry."The intergenerational themes that arose within the family were also quite compelling.



This is a refreshing and unique family saga, different due to the focus on music and vernacular, and the shifting language in the novel, that serve to really connect the reader to that particular time period and culture.If you can stick with it through the slower parts, the rewards are well worth the effort.

Posted on November 29, 2010

Derek Fiene says...

I waited years for another book by Madame Shange, and I was not disappointed. Though very lengthy, the colorful, musical language immersed me in these characters, making and allowing me to care about them. As a Black woman who came of age in the 60's it also allowed me to see myself and many of the women who loved and nurtured me. Thanks to the authors for taking us on this literary journey.



Angelia Vernon Menchan

Posted on December 1, 2010