When Did You Stop Loving Me: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Veronica Chambers (Author) "It was 1979 and escape was heavy in the air..." (more)
Key Phrases: hot comb, Uncle Roger, New York, Miss Black America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
For Angela Davis Brown, the heroine of Veronica Chambers's debut novel, When Did You Stop Loving Me, life can be divided into two parts: before and after her mother disappears on an otherwise ordinary day in 1979. Left in the care of her father, a magician who drives a Mercedes yet can't afford much more than an omelet or two a day, Angela must navigate the waters of young womanhood on her own, save the occasional appearance of her father's numerous girlfriends or her abusive Aunt Mona. Along the way, this precocious sixth-grader must grapple with the inevitable yet unanswerable need to understand how a mother could abandon her child to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood, to Angela a place a world away from Brooklyn.

Chambers paints a vivid image of the political and socio-economic climate of New York in the early 1980s. The most entertaining and heartfelt scenes of this novel come when Angela describes her parents riveting admiration for Assata Shakur's escape from prison, or her father's sense of pure joy at meeting Muhammad Ali after performing at a PBS telethon to benefit the United Negro College Fund. Where the author falls short is in capturing the essence of Angela's grief; at no point does the reader feel any true investment in Angela's emotional or mental fate. Insincere lines like "My father was a magician, but Mommy was the real Houdini" do little to align the reader with this young girl's plight. Even at the end, when Chambers offers us a glimpse of Angela's adulthood, we feel no attachment to the character, no sense of triumph in her achievements and accomplishments. In fact, it is easier to identify with Teddo, Angela's proud, stubborn father, simply because he seems more genuine. His anger and grief at his wife's disappearance are palpable ("…He knelt down beside me and rested his head on my lap. His head shook and my hands trembled. I tried to still him. He cried so long that the legs of my pajamas were wet through.") while Angela's pain seems contrived and detached.

When Did You Stop Loving Me is a noble first effort, but Chambers, who has achieved success as a journalist and a critic, would benefit from abandoning clichés in favor of deeper character exploration. --Gisele Toueg

From Booklist
In Chambers' highly acclaimed memoir, Mama's Girl (1996), her dad took off to try to make it as a ventriloquist, leaving her to live first with her angry mother and then with him. This exquisite first novel, also set in Brooklyn in the late 1970s, reads like a memoir, only this time it's mother who leaves and is never heard from again. Eleven-year-old Angela speaks with lyrical simplicity about her grief ("I came home from school and Mommy wasn't there"); her bewildered attempts to fit into her magician dad's world; and her anger that he wants her to be his assistant, "part doll, part circus monkey." Her mother left behind only her straightening comb and a toothbrush, "pink with splayed bristles." Best of all is the unsentimental picture of the loving, messed-up single-parent dad. His rants about racism tire Angela, until a white spectator asks him why he doesn't make himself white. Chambers doesn't overdo the magician metaphors, but she makes real the disappearing acts in a world of mirrors and knives. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (May 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385509006
• ISBN-13: 978-0385509008
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,297,607 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful debut, May 25, 2004

By	Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

WHEN DID YOU STOP LOVING ME by Veronica Chambers

WHEN DID YOU STOP LOVING ME is Veronica Chambers debut novel about a young black girl growing up in the 70's and early 80's whose mother decides to leave her family without a trace. It's not only a story of a girl's coming to terms with her mother's disappearance, but also a look back at an era that started with the end of the Vietnam War and the fight for Civil Rights.

Angela Davis Brown's life revolved around the love she had for her parents. Melanie is a beautiful woman who at one time had aspirations to becoming someone famous, perhaps a model or an actress. Angela's father is a professional magician, working at nightclubs and private parties. With his lack of income, her mother is the breadwinner of the family, and Melanie often berated Teddo for not bringing in enough money. When Melanie disappears, life goes on and Teddo does his best to bring up Angela on his own, trying to bring in more money and giving Melanie the sense of family she needs. He doesn't always succeed, but his heart is in the right place, teaching Melanie about life and about her black heritage.

The story is told in flashbacks, using images from the seventies to describe Teddo's convictions of a black man who is trying to survive in a white man's world. Although this story is about Angela, the story about Teddo and Melanie helps round out Angela's search for the answers she needs to explain why her mother abandoned them.

I especially enjoyed the references made to the 1970's, reminscing about the era that I grew up in. But I also enjoyed reading about these characters. I found myself laughing as Angela's father warns her about the bad influences of watching shows like the Brady Bunch and Partridge Family, subservice white man shows that taught kids all sorts of bad things. He didn't want his daughter to be like that! His aspirations for her were to go to upper class white private schools and fitting in with that same crowd. Although his pride in being black was always apparent, he also had a need to be cultured, to be accepted by the upper class white population. He also taught her the gift of reading, and tried to show her that education could be acquired from simply reading a book.

I really enjoyed WHEN DID YOU STOP LOVING ME. It was not what I had expected at all, although I cannot say at this point what I was expecting. After reading this book, I felt a satisfaction that comes from reading a good book, short and sweet, yet it packed in plenty for such a short novel. I am looking forward to more by Veronica Chambers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Daddy, Can You Make My Mommy Reappear?, August 5, 2004

By	Dera R Williams (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

How does an eleven year-old girl deal with the abandonment of her mother? How can the pain be lessened? It cannot but Angela Davis Brown learns to navigate the terrain of pain and mistrust by growing to trust her father, a father who sometimes is ill-equipped to care for a girl child. Teddo, a magician-- almost unheard of in the black community-- holds to his pride. A spouting black nationalist and hurt by his wife's abandonment, he is suffering from his loss and therefore makes mistakes in raising his daughter. Set in 1979, in New York, the music of the times and the racial climate gives this novel a sense of place.

Melanie had dreams and those dreams eventually drove her to become more dissatisfied with a husband who was financially unstable and a dreamer himself. When she left, she left her daughter the only thing she had of value, a pressing comb that symbolized the generations of women before her who sought to beautify themselves before they stepped out into the world. Despite his bitterness and in spite of it, Teddo still clings to the work he feels he is called to do thereby exposing Angela to the seedier side of life in nightclubs and other venues. Angela sees and hears things she should not but a precocious child, she embraces the world outside of her Brooklyn neighborhood. A wise child, she also is not afraid to question her father's racist viewpoints and no matter how much she loves him she still wonders why did her mother leave her?. The irony of the situation is not lost on her when she acknowledges that though her dad is the magician; her mother has pulled the ultimate Houdini act.

This is one that pulls at the heart strings. There is a scene where Angela recounts how though a great majority of the kids at school did not have a father in the home, everyone had a mother. Chambers is able to weave time and place and able to delve into the mind and actions of an adolescent girl. The language is at time poetic, lyrical and metaphoric.
This is a highly recommended read.

Dera Williams
APOOO BookClub

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A House of Knives and Mirrors, June 22, 2004

By	The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

Set in 1970's Harlem, WHEN DID YOU STOP LOVING ME by Veronica Chambers features Angela Davis Brown, a child abandoned by her mother, Melanie, and left to be raised by her father, Teddo, a magician. The story, told through the voice of Angie as an adult, delves into the past as Angie attempts to come to grips with her mother's abandonment. What we find is Angie's endurance, her hopefulness for her mother's return, her optimism and lack of hatred towards her mother. Through her musings we are treated to her father's agenda. Teddo is self-absorbed as he ekes a life for Angie and himself. He is consumed with race relations, the movement of the time, but only when it benefits the moment and his goals. Actually this is a story about the pain of abandonment of two people, however, it is through Angie's voice we hear her father's pain as he strives to shield the truth from Angie. Angie also bears some additional truths, some with humor and some with sadness, of the people they come into contact with such as Teddo's male friends, his female acquaintances, the clients he performs for, his bartering skills and Angie's aunt; an aunt with limited contact prior to Melanie's surrender.

Veronica Chamber's prose is excellent and her use of metaphors and similes is fluid and enjoyable to read. The imagery has the ability to take you to this era and through it as you feel for Angie and her needs as a young girl coming of age. I enjoyed listening to Angie because of her quipped remarks, replies and thoughts. The ending is heartfelt as Angie, as an adult, continues to question why her mother stopped loving her.

Reviewed by Dawn R. Reeves
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers