Customer Reviews

Daughter: A Novel

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3 star:		(1)
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Daughter is one of those soul-stirring works that seizes your attention. It compels you to glimpse into your own life and seek change within yourself. Thought-provoking, loving, and moving, asha bandele has written a novel about the relationship between a mother and daughter who never really knew one another -- until it was too late.

Miriam is the giving mother who would do anything to ensure Aya's needs were met. Yet, she wasn't the kind of mother who gave hugs freely, said "I love you" just because, or allowed herself to speak openly with her daughter. She felt the less Aya knew about her past, the less hurt and disappointed she would be.

Aya, at the opening of the novel, is a 19-year-old college student who made excellent grades and did what she was told. Although she loves her mother dearly, her only wish is to know who her father was. All she's ever really known about Bird was that he was a Vietnam War veteran.

Bird was so much more than that, as we find out. Miriam has a past with Bird that goes a lot deeper than Aya could ever know. But sadly, she never finds out because her life is tragically taken from her by police who mistakenly kill her. And Miriam not only grieves for her daughter, but grieves for things she's always known but could never tell Aya.

bandele's writing is superb and one could almost lose herself in the lyrical, surreal writing from a writer who seems destined to be one of our most renowned Black authors.

I have finished reading this book and it IS one of THE BEST books I have read in MY LIFE.

This will be my new gift book for the women friends in my life.

Ahhh ..... it had truly captured my heart.

If you have a daughter, if you are a daughter, if you know a daughter, if you plan on having a daughter ..... BUY THIS BOOK!

It is about a woman who's daughter is killed by the police.

It goes into her life and the relationship, or lack of relationship she had with her daughter.

It is about not holding back.

It is about words never said.

It is about regret.

It is about LIVING regardless of the heartbreak.

It is about love lost ..... BUT having the courage to still get up and LIVE.

It is about having a voice regardless of the shame.

It is about the shame and sharing the story of shame.

Oh, it is about LIFE.

I love it.

It has touched something deep inside of me.

I am so full of emotions when I think about the many messages of this book.

Oh, and the writing is so GOOD.

Asha is one hell of a writer.

I can't wait for her to write more.

Its been a long time since I read a book that touched me the way Daughter has. After reading The Prisoners Wife I was looking forward to reading asha bandele's next book. One Sunday while attending the 5th Ave Book Fair in NYC I had the pleasure of meeting asha and her daughter. I was fortunate to have her autograph my copy of Daughter. I couldn't wait to start reading and once I started I wasn't dissapointed.
I was swept up in the story of Miriam and Aya. As a mother with 2 daughters I understand the delicate balance of the mother/daughter relationship.
asha bandele is as very talented writer and I look forward to reading more from her.

I have been waiting on this book from asha bandele. I loved Prisoner's Wife and she didn't let me down with "Daughter" This book is like literary poetry. The story of a mother and a daughter, grieving and LOVE...will leave it at that so as not to give it all away. But, I will say that "Daughter" is for people who appreciate not only a gripping and moving story, but also long for stories told with beauty, vivid imagery, poetic language and resonance. Like in Ms. bandele's other book, "The Prisoner's Wife", she has the ability to not only tell the story but fill you up with the emotion of characters. Feel what they feel and really take the reader into the world of the characters. So many books today by other contemporary writers are shallow and empty but after I finished reading I thought, "Ok, this is a real writer with things on her mind worth reading" The kind of writer that only comes around every once in a great while. bandele is truly gifted with the the use of language and storytelling. Glorious.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. Bandele gives us the most wonderful prose about mothers and daughters. Her words, her compelling tale of a daughter's sadness and a mother's distance manage to transcend generations, making the story not only about Aya and Miriam, but about Miriam and her mother as well. The book moves the spirit with truth, and makes the mind pause to absorb the societal ramifications of young black lives gone too soon from white police bullets. You will be moved while you stand still and think.

Ms. Bandele's latest novel, Daughter, is quite the spell. From beginning to end, Daughter mesmerizes. The book also enlightens readers to the vast murders by policemen. You hear about these horrors or read about them in papers or maybe you've witnessed one at your door step. Ms. Bandele shines a light on the aftermath, the raw emotions left on the surface when a loved one is shot down under the guise of "the officer was just doing his job," or "he felt threatened." And while this non-fictional truth about law enforcement plagues the nation, Ms. Bandele brilliantly remains focused on the residue. The novel never once reels off into the path of anger-writing, but pans on love, maternal trials and rituals of grief.

The novel interestingly deals with motifs that run throughout black life. The language is precise---you are sure to find motifs that run throughout your own life in this book: the way Mama speaks, one truth about black Vietnam vets, the smells of food, the way grief unfolds in the mind and body, how the furniture sits.

Daughter tells the story of how death robs one mother of affection, not responsibility, but affection. Miriam's character is highly complex. You feel pity for her parents who take sheltering their daughter too seriously. They often cross the line of "do-good, too-good." Their lifestyle might take you back to "Leave It To Beaver," but with a strong twist of black reality. It is this upright, dangerous behavior that sends their daughter to look for love elsewhere. Love that listens, love that doesn't overly protect, overly instruct, love that has a little slack in its spine. We see Miriam move away from the false pretenses of her family at the tender age of 16 into a life with an older man who teaches her what she has already felt. The novel argues in truth that children pay attention more than we'd like to acknowledge, they listen when we least think they are not, and they are definitely affected by our actions as parents. We see this in Miriam's response to her own daughter who starves for her mother's deepest affection and for her mother to listen: one of the most important gifts a parent could ever give a child. Daughter reminds us of that funny, critical thing that happens between generations: stories passed down.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects in the novel is Aya's construct of her own father. She mythologizes his life given the fragments Miriam has told her. And because the young mother cannot bear to reveal the truth, she often tries to prevent Aya from feeling the inevitable.

This novel packs in history, the ignored reality about dirty policemen, and complex mother-daughter relationships. Mostly, Daughter laments to its readers: do not wait to love your daughters diligently, thoroughly, wholly, fully, and always do so remembering that they have their own thoughts, desires, and souls.

A fine project! Highly recommended!!

This is the best book I read in 2003, without a doubt! It is basically a simple tale, no fantastic plot twists, nothing special, or so you think. The line is simple- a woman's only daughter is shot by the police in a case of mistaken identity. After this tragedy, Miriam (the Mother) flashes back to incidents in her life that have shaped the person she is today, and in her thinking, have lead to this unimaginable tragedy. It is a wonderful journey! THe story is told with clarity and grace, and the wisdom of one who has seen and heard far too many horrible things. The narrative is poetic, the dialogue beleivable and the characters are multidimensional, even the ones we only meet briefly.

This book made me cry. Very few novels move me like this. I was transported into Brooklyn, into Miriam's life. I felt her anger, her rage, her fear, her hopelessness.

I have one very minor criticism though- the character of Bird uses dialogue that is beautiful, and intelligent, and thought provoking, yet he uses the slang terms of "Cat" and "Brother". I realize this was the vernacular at the time these scenes were supposed to take place, but it doesn't fit in with the rest of his speech.

But please read this novel. It is so wonderful!

I rarely write Amazon reviews but I had to for this book. It is the most exquisite, poignant, lyrical, poetic, heart-wrenching, change-inspiring book I have read in years. It captures the essence of the heart and soul of black women today, generations past and for generations to come. It celebrates oursisterhood and our love for one another in friendship; it shares the agony we feel and may experience when trying to love our men; it depicts the struggle most black women go through with respect to trying to please our mothers and our families; and it shares the anguish that can accompany being the mother or grandmother of a black child. This book is political and romantic, angry and loving, spiritual and yet critical of the way we sometimes use institutionalized religion to cope with pain and heartache in a way that literally kill our spirits. I highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially to black women, as it will be a book and reading experience with which you are sure to relate and will undoubtedly treasure.

ahsa bandele, staff writer and editor for Essence Magazine, continues her poetic, lyrical and sometimes convoluted language featured in her bestselling memoir, The Prisoner's Wife, in her fiction debut, daughter. This book explores the social issues of racism, the ravages of war veterans, and police brutality as well as the dynamics in relationships of men and women and most especially mother and daughters.

Mothers often raise their daughters with a set of "rules" to follow, expecting them to accept and embrace those rules without ever fully explaining the whys of such. Each generation of women hope and pray that by giving these rules their girl child will have an easier time with navigating the high seas of love, life and economic stability.

The book opens with Miriam Rivers sitting at the bedside of her daughter, Aya, in a dank hospital room in New York. Aya, a nineteen year old college student has been shot by a policeman while jogging, apparently the victim of mistaken identity. Miriam has always tried to do right by her daughter. She saw that Aya was well cared but withheld the affection and attention her daughter craved. She never talked to Aya about the father she never knew or why they were all alone in the world. Miriam was raised by parents who raised her to stand apart from her community and schoolmates, reminding her of the privileges she had and the legacy she was to carry. Smothered by her mother's rules by which to live, Miriam rushes into the arms of Bird at age sixteen. At the young age of nineteen Bird is a Vietnamese veteran. But it is the 1960s and he is besieged by racism in finding suitable employment and the constant harassment of policemen. Bird finds solace in Miriam's love but his anger is so overwhelming in the face of the trials and tribulations he encounters daily, he slowly pushes her away. Tragedy leaves Miriam alone with baby Aya to raise by herself.

Written with conviction and candor, this novel is a testament to those men who have strived to love and protect their families while fighting racial and economic oppression, to those women who have loved men to the point of not loving themselves enough, to the mothers who have raised children to only have them taken away in a moment of violence, to the mothers who have dispensed "rules" to their daughters because it was the right thing to do and for those daughters who have felt smothered and tempted to dispute those rules. bandele deftly weaves in and out of time spans with ease, her use of metaphors and similes paint vivid pictures. I had the pleasure of hearing bandele read the last chapter of this book at her signing here in Oakland. It was poetry in motion, alive, vibrant, and stirring. It will cause women everywhere to become lovers of themselves, in the words of Sonia Sanchez, "I shall be a collector of me." daughter is highly recommended though it is not for the faint of heart.

Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub

I haven't read a book like this in a LONG time. I cried like haven't cried before. Here is an author who has the gift. This book captured my relationship with myself and my mother. I have found my favorite author, who I dare say is better than Toni morrison. You will NOt be disappointed in reading this book. Hopefully in the future this book will be required reading in college.