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From Amazon
Claireece Precious Jones endures unimaginable hardships in her young life. Abused by her mother, raped by her father, she grows up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed. So what better way to learn about her than through her own, halting dialect. That is the device deployed in the first novel by poet and singer Sapphire. "Sometimes I wish I was not alive," Precious says. "But I don't know how to die. Ain' no plug to pull out. 'N no matter how bad I feel my heart don't stop beating and my eyes open in the morning." An intense story of adversity and the mechanisms to cope with it.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
With this much anticipated first novel, told from the point of view of an illiterate, brutalized Harlem teenager, Sapphire (American Dreams), a writer affiliated with the Nuyorican poets, charts the psychic damage of the most ghettoized of inner-city inhabitants. Obese, dark-skinned, HIV-positive, bullied by her sexually abusive mother, Clareece, Precious Jones is, at the novel's outset, pregnant for the second time with her father's child. (Precious had her first daughter at 12, named Little Mongo, "short for Mongoloid Down Sinder, which is what she is; sometimes what I feel I is. I feel so stupid sometimes. So ugly, worth nuffin.") Referred to a pilot program by an unusually solicitous principal, Precious comes under the experimental pedagogy of a lesbian miracle worker named, implausibly enough, Blue Rain. Under her angelic mentorship, Precious, who has never before experienced real nurturing, learns to voice her long suppressed feelings in a journal. As her language skills improve, she finds sustenance in writing poetry, in friendships and in support groups-one for "insect" survivors and one for HIV-positive teens. It is here that Sapphire falters, as her slim and harrowing novel, with its references to Harriet Tubman, Langston Hughes and The Color Purple (a parallel the author hints at again and again), becomes a conventional, albeit dark and unresolved, allegory about redemption. The ending, composed of excerpts from the journals of Precious's classmates, lends heightened realism and a wider scope to the narrative, but also gives it a quality of incompleteness. Sapphire has created a remarkable heroine in Precious, whose first-person street talk is by turns blisteringly savvy, rawly lyrical, hilariously pig-headed and wrenchingly vulnerable. Yet that voice begs to be heard in a larger novel of more depth and complexity. 150,000 first printing; first serial to the New Yorker; audio rights to Random; foreign rights sold to England, France, Germany, Holland, Portugal and Brazil.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Push by Sapphire,
By Literary Enthusiast "Marilyn" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Push: A Novel (Paperback)
"Push" is a dynamic, living novel that has documented trials and tribulations secretly experienced by many families. The writing is fierce, heart-breaking and harsh, yet can be so true as it documents an ugly story.Themes of poverty, power and control, sexual exploitation, poverty, domination, racism etc. ring through the poetry and Ebonics used by the author to make the piece more realistic. The setting is stilted with bare stone buildings, shelters, schools, hospitals placed in ghetto surroundings that provide little stimulation for growth and development. The main character, Precious, shows a strong willingness to survive and overcome her deplorable circumstances with only one main supporter, her teacher, who believe in her. Getting an education will save her from the abuse and destruction of her parents, enabling her to make an effort to break the cycle of darkness and repression for her own children. The book is a masterpiece.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Reminder not to write off anyone as a lost cause.,
By Liesl English (Austin,TX) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Push: A Novel (Paperback)
This book was incredibly difficult to read due to the graphic manner in which the subject matter was relayed. But this same graphic manner made the book that much more powerful of a read. Sapphire does a great job first having us identify the main character, Precious Jones, as other, someone separate from us, and then slowly pulling us in to get to know her. This technique allows us to recognize that someone in reality whom we identify as other can become someone we know and understand independent of our own personal situations. Note to readers: make sure to read the poem in the beginning before and after reading Push and see how your understanding of that poem changes.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Rated R,
By
This review is from: Push: A Novel (Paperback)
I was very surprised to find the way this novel was written. There is a lot of profanity and grafic recounts by the narrator, of scence of incest. It is also hard to follow at times because it is written as the main character, Precious Jones, would speak. As one would assume someone who could not read or write and was very under educated would tell a story. Misspelled words, bad grammer etc.All in all, it was a decent story but very short. Only about 150 pages in length. I didn't feel satisfied when I finished it. I felt like the story could have continued for a while longer in order to have a better conclusion.
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