Book Review: "Maud Martha" by Gwendolyn Brooks

Please be aware of minor spoilers in this book review.

I first heard about this book whilst reading a newspaper. No, I did not read it from the newspaper, but I was rather looking for something in the newspaper online and then simply stumbled across the book Maud Martha in the process. In the books of women's lives, this seems a more tolerable piece of writing than Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. I did not say I didn't like The Bell Jar, but I have over the years had my fill of it and would rather read something else. Maud Martha is one of those books that takes you through the life of a woman who always seems incomplete but there are specks of hope left within. You keep reading in hope that it gets better.

Written in 1953 in a turbulent time for African-Americans, this novel tells the story of its eponymous protagonist in thirty-four short poetic vignettes, a style perfected by the author Gwendolyn Brooks. From her childhood to her love of flowers to her reading books and all the way through to her disappointing relationships, Maud Martha is the cautiously hopeful heroine who endures many psychological batterings only to still get up and do what she has to in order to survive.

These vignettes allow the reader to piece together important moments of Maud's life and gain access to her most difficult and trying times in the first person. She often feels deflated around others due to the comments and opinions they hold about the detached Maud, she can be tough in her mind though her body differs on those plains and finally, she is willing to put up with a lot in comparison to the modern woman. You cannot help but hold a little bit of Maud Martha in your heart after reading about her.

Her story is told in a nonlinear style and the tone is close to the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks in its wording. The idea of having a poetic narrative personally, I think it is a fantastic idea for this novel. Brooks digs deep at the very heart of Maud's life, bringing out the stark realities of being an African-American woman in a dangerously divided United States. The language and its essences are all reflective of the experience.

One of the most heartbreaking parts of the book is when she gets married to a man named Paul Phillips and then proceeds to think that she is going to have a really nice life with him - let me explain. The courtship is that Maud believes she will be 'well to do' and dress better, eat better and live better with Paul. Ultimately, as we know from past books a la Virginia Woolf - that never actually comes true. She is left not only unloved by her husband most of the time, but unaware that the idea that one day she will entertain dinner guests and dress in fine outfits will never actually come to pass. Yet, she does not give up all hope whatsoever, proving her soul is still sound with her predicaments. She is used to this treatment - which is even more heartbreaking.

Written beautifully with a palette of broken dreams, terrible romances and critiques of personality and looks that are completely uncalled for, Maud Martha endures the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the terrors of life as an African-American woman only to keep herself as grounded as she can. Her sufferance is a testament to the great personality of female suffering in literature and Brooks writes it with a fantastic brush stroke of quiet confidence. The horrors of racism never leave the novel and colour even a child's life as Maud seeks and fails to shield her daughter from this nastiness that is segregation.

After reading this, I realised that the ending had an air of hopefulness not because of the future, but because it gives a second chance to Maud who thought that she could only show her daughter the niceties of life whilst she herself experienced the terrors and nightmares that the USA once brought to the African American community. Her realisation that racism will be aimed at her daughter as she grows up is something she has to unfortunately come to terms with as she tries to keep her head above water for the next event of her life - another child.

In conclusion, this book is a wildly brilliant testament to Gwendolyn Brooks' incredible writing ability and her power for telling the stories of African American women in trying times. The language is absolutely beautiful and echoes the messages which align us with people like Angela Davis who once spoke on women and James Baldwin who poetically discusses the experience of the African American citizen searching for themselves.