Customer Reviews

Some Personal Papers

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Some Personal Papers, which recently garnered author, JoAllen Bradham, the Georgia Fiction Writer of the Year Award, is a must read. This exquisitely told story is about Eugenia Putman, "Miss Genie," a dedicated social worker who is forced to make choices regarding the children in her personal care that few of us could ever make. This is a case of when "doing what's best" is, without a doubt, a case of "doing what's worst," but for all of the right reasons. Although it has often been said that actions speak louder than words, Miss Genie's actions cannot even be considered without first reading her story in her own words, words that scream at you about the often painful experience that is life for many people, and particularly for children. This is a story you will not soon forget.

This novel is just as JoAllen herself said; "It's a quick read, and a long think."

The press may specialize in books about the South, but the book itself deserves the attention of readers everywhere. Those who read for significant, thought-rpvoking subject matter will find it. Those who read for artistic method will rejoice.

SOME PERSONAL PAPERS is the story of Eugenia Putman, an urban social worker, who must deal with some of the saddest stories of child abuse and neglect. Although she tries her best to remain objective, eventually her sense of duty turns her to taking matters into her own hands. With just a few days left before her conviction, she retells what she felt she had to do and why. The story is full of irony as Bradham creates a character who challenges our sense that right and wrong is always clear cut. The plot is suspenseful and the setting is key to the artistry in Bradham's prose. I taught the novel with great success over the last two years, and I highly recommend it.

"I think my heart did stop with love", Genia Putman ("Mama-Genie") says of her tiny charges, pitiful children wrapped up in a nighmare of social abuse. How Mama-Genie manifests her love is told in Some Personal Papaers, one of the most compelling stories I've read this year. Like Toni Morrison's Beloved and Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Some Personal Papers is a beautifully told tale of what - sometimes - strong women must do to follow their hearts. JoAllen Bradham's book is unique and told from an unusual perspective. It also has gorgeous prose. Mama-Genie's descriptions of her garden where (as in the Song of Solomon) "My beloved's mine...he feedeth among the lillies", are worth the price of the book by themselves. Genia's garden, which eventually becomes a place of "Rightness. Freedom. Vindication. Air.", creates a mesmerizing allegory throughout this tale of complex relationships and rare characters. I truly enjoyed this book and wished to hear more from Mama-Genie. Hopefully author Bradham has more interesting female characters in her bookbag and will treat us to further good reads!

Eugenia Putman, "Miss Genie," is the lovable, respected, frequently honored head of Child Services, a woman with a special heart for the most damaged and hopeless children. Among her caseload are the crippled, the severely retarded, the blind, the legless, and the severely neglected. Throwaway children with little chance of improving their lot. And in grappling with their plight and their dearth of options, she talks herself into an extreme solution. One by one she kills them.

That's the plot in a nutshell, but the plot is only the beginning. Her struggles, her thought process, her elegant way of rationalizing the unthinkable, the graves in her back yard, and her ultimate downfall, make the most entertaining read I've encountered in a long time. The tale is elegantly crafted, beautifully written, gripping, and powerful. You will love these children, and you will love Miss Genie, in spite of everything.

Joallen Bradham is a talented writer with a special ear for language, for dialect, and for the nuances of feeling. To tell the truth, this book isn't for everyone--if you are squeamish about the ideas she portrays, you may not like the book. If you can detach just a bit, take it as it is, listen to the poetry--you will love it. I recommend Some Personal Papers highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Bradham's novel portrays the ethical conflicts a social worker faces in dealing with neglected children. The novel is suspenseful and troubling in a good way. She makes you think hard about whether or not Eugenia Putman is in any way ethical. There is a Swiftian sensibility to her writing, which makes the horror of the story all the more real. Overall, the elements of fiction writing, and the use of irony are especially strong. This is not a book that is easy to put down. I taught it with great success in a literature survey class last year. The students were moved, and were able to write scholarly papers on the novel, as well.

The combination of qualities usually taken as opposites impresses me. Bradham makes realism and lyricism work together in an entirely believable way. The combination keeps the reader wondering about the narrator-protagonist whose ways are as strange as her commitment to right is strong.