Perfect Peace [Hardcover]

Daniel Black (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 16, 2010

The heartbreaking portrait of a large, rural southern family’s attempt to grapple with their mother’s desperate decision to make her newborn son into the daughter she will never have

When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, “You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain’t what you was supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon’ be a boy. It’ll be a little strange at first, but you’ll get used to it, and this’ll be over after while.” From this point forward, his life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Black (The Sacred Place) explores the fateful decision of Emma Jean Peace to raise her seventh son, Perfect, as the daughter she has always wanted. Her plan, nutty as it is, works out until Perfect is eight years old and his blind older brother, Bartimaeus, makes an innocent discovery about his sister's body. Soon after, Perfect's friends begin talk of womanhood, prompting Emma Jean to reveal to Perfect the truth. So begins an education for Perfect—rechristened Paul—on manhood while his small Arkansas town casts an unforgiving eye on its newest curiosity. While the rural South backdrop is overly familiar and the dialogue is painfully hoary (What chu talkin' 'bout, Emma Jean?), Black manages a nuanced exploration of sexual identity and social structures without elevating his characters to angels or martyrs. (Mar.)
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Review

“Daniel Black understands the racial psychology and culture of the South so well that he can show, not tell, and his characters’ actions always ring true. This novel is a powerful exploration of a small group of individuals who hold each other in high regard. The love among members of this family is severely challenged, but the challenge is triumphantly met. Each child grows to manhood and achieves success according to his gifts. Through their lives we experience disappointment and sorrow, but also fulfillment and joy. Perfect Peace is an intense and satisfying read.” 
 --Greg Iles, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil's Punchbowl

 

“Daniel Black writes of growing up in a small town with humor, grace and forgiveness.” --Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of Very Valentine and the Big Stone Gap Series

 

“Craft is not the word for this joyfully inscribed novel. The proper word is art. The book is a brave and complicated story perfectly told. Mr. Black offers a cultural gift to be welcomed.”

--Houston A. Baker, Jr., author of American Book Award winning Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals have abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era.

 

"Perfect Peace is a morality tale of the consequences of letting our selfish needs trap the ones we love into roles they weren't born to play. The characters here are as flawed, their sins numerous, as any living human being held under the lens, but the author brings a compassion and understanding to their plights." --Mat Johnson, award-winning author of Incognegro, Drop, and Hunting in Harlem  

 

"Daniel Black has pried open the isolated lives of rural southerners, allowing us to peek inside. To understand the complexities of the southern experience, read Perfect Peace.”

 --Dr. Karyn Lacy, professor of Sociology, University of Michigan, author of Blue Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class

 

"Mr. Black’s novel nudges our sense of awareness and accountability.  His narrative eloquently poses difficult questions with disarming kindness:  ‘Do you know who you are?  Do you know what you do?  Do you know that there is never an excuse?’ The relevance of this work with regard to all we are and all we do far exceeds his adroitly simple telling of the tale."

--Keith Hamilton Cobb, actor

 

“Part cautionary tale, part folk tale, part fable, Daniel Black's Perfect Peace is a complete triumph.  It bursts with emotions as intense as opera.  Perfect Peace will bring you to tears and laughter.  You will recognize characters from your own life, and perhaps even recognize yourself.  In Emma Jean Peace, a mid-20th-Century rural Southern black woman who wants a daughter so desperately that she raises her infant son as a girl, Dr. Black has created a character as complex, equivocal and unforgettable as Scarlett O'Hara.”

-- Larry Duplechan, author of Blackbird, Captain Swing, and the Lambda Literary Award-winning Got 'Til It's Gone

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1 edition (March 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312582676
• ISBN-13: 978-0312582678
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (366 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #505,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The closest thing to Perfect March 18, 2010

By Reginald D. Bailey Jr.

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am absolutely amazed right now. So much took place in the book. Emma Jean's bout of desperation, Perfect/Paul's struggle for freedom, Mister's secret love affair, Henrietta's revenge, Authorly's misguided notions of manhood, Woody's understanding of God, Blind Bartimaeus' intuitive sight, King Solomon's diligence in education, Gus and the Jordan, and last but not least, Sugar Baby, the seemingly drunken fool who knew everything from the beginning to the end. Daniel Black has somehow written about four or five novels and weaved them all together to give the World "Perfect Peace". Every character has a story, and every story lends itself to next. I laughed, I cried, and I had to walk away from the book a few times because of it's poignant intensity. I am officially a fan, and I cannot wait to read his pervious works, and hopefully many more to come.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sins Of The Mother April 26, 2010

By The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Format:Hardcover

When Emma Jean was a child, she was abused mentally and physically by her mean-spirited mother. She couldn't understand why her mother went to such great lengths to hate her but shamelessly showered her two older sisters with the love and the attention she craved.

Emma Jean marries Gustavus "Gus" Peace and from their union six sons are born. Pregnant with number seven, Emma Jean feels deep in her heart she will be blessed with a girl; a daughter she will love and cherish, unlike the way she was treated as a child. As fate will have it, she gives birth to a son; a beautiful son she will easily disguise as a girl and name Perfect. For eight years, sweet, adorable Perfect was the apple of her brothers' eyes and her parents' pride and joy. However, Emma Jean and Perfect's world is shattered when Perfect's true identity is discovered. Perfect's name is changed to Paul and he is forced to start living his life as a boy.

PERFECT PEACE grabs the reader in a tight hold and doesn't release them until the last page. Black's graphic writing allowed my mental images of the time and place in Swamp Creek, Arkansas flow through my mind with ease. The colorful, flawed characters and intricate story line caused my emotions to soar to different heights in various sections of the story; laughter, anger, happiness, and tears. PERFECT PEACE is a spectacular, soul-stirring literary gem!!!

Reviewed by Sharon Lewis
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Novel! March 18, 2010

By R. L. Edwards

Format:Hardcover

PERFECT PEACE is a masterfully crafted novel whose cadence explores forgiveness, parenting, and growing up queer in the south. More than a novel, PERFECT PEACE is a message from some other realm, and it explicates the ways in which abused African Americans often transfer their personal pain and hurt to some other undeserving soul. Through PERFECT PEACE, Black carves a space for himself in this nation's long tradition of great literary masters. When you read it you will cry, you will sing, and you, too, will transform with the novel's characters. The novel's characters were so ingeniously conceived that one can easily find themselves and their personal experience in the novel's storyline. All things considered, PERFECT PEACE poses a number of questions which cause readers to closely examine the ways in which gender is not biologically determined but rather socially constructed.

When Emma Jean Peace decides to raise her seventh son as a girl, she sets in motion a series of events that she hopes will contribute unto her liberation. Sadly, her freedom results in the bondage of her daughter, Perfect. Though her sins are numerous, one sympathizes with Emma Jean while at the same time praying for Perfect's successful transition into manhood. Though the novel's issues are complex, Black presents these issues in a simplistic kind of way while simultaneously offering the avid reader a literary challenge. The book is a quick read, yet I left the experience transformed!