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Conclusion. Returning to the Beginning
- University of Georgia Press
- Chapter
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[ c o n c l u s i o n Returning to the Beginning In 2002, Major published Come by Here: My Mother’s Life. In the book, he intersperses narrative in her voice with his commentaries about how things have changed over several decades. He also incorporates genealogical information, such as birth and death dates and family histories that are not typically found in memoirs. Much of this information, verified through other sources, has been used in the present work. While the reviews of this work have focused on the story of Inez, as Major intended, the more important concern for this analysis is her son as author and covert subject. He notes in the preface that his relationship to her is split into son and observer. In addition to being his mother, she is a good artist’s subject: “Inez’s life, in its complexity and richness, is ideal raw material. It’s a writer’s dream” (Come by Here, x). A number of themes suggest the complex nature of the narrative. Race operates throughout as an arbitrary but important signifier of identity and condition. Art is a practice passed down through the generations, often with an emphasis on its technical and financial aspects. Relationships are often difficult, and there are a number of broken or troubled marriages. Women tend to be strong, independent, and highly social, but sometimes psychologically troubled. Finally, the book offers a variation on Richard Wright’s Black Boy in its story of a young person’s move from the Deep South to Chicago’s South Side. The differences can be explained in part by time and gender; Inez moves in the 1940s rather than 242 ] conclusion the 1920s, and as a woman she had distinct issues in employment and living arrangements. Nonetheless, the two books share a concern for finding social, economic, and political opportunities in a less oppressive environment that turns out to be less than ideal. What is particularly significant here is that Major sees his mother’s story as “raw material,” meaning that it is his task to turn it into a finished artistic product. He claims sole authorship of the text; it is his book, even if it is her story. It reflects his sense of theme, character, and structure, like all his other artistic efforts. I would also suggest that, in some sense, Inez’s life is a metaphor for his career. The matter of race is central to the narrative, but it goes well beyond her personal experience. Several of the reviews note the theme of passing and Inez’s double life made possible because of her light skin. The first chapter opens with her sudden awareness that Jim Crow laws are not applied to her unless she in some way draws attention to her race. But the family history she relates is replete with racial mixing. Her maternal grandfather was “two-thirds” Cherokee, while her legal father, William Henry Hull in the book, was the son of a prominent judge in Wilkes County, Georgia. Inez herself, of course, was the daughter of a local planter, whose family was well established in the area. We later learn that her first husband’s grandmother was a white woman who gave up her child by a black man and then that her second husband was of Chinese and African American ancestry. But race goes beyond genetics in this narrative; it also involves social practices and attitudes. While the book offers some instances of racial insult and hostility, such behavior is not determined by the race or location of the perpetrator, and bad behavior is more than balanced by instances of generous actions. In parallel narratives about auto accidents, one in Georgia and one in Illinois, it is whites who assist her at the scene and white doctors who care for her. During her adult years, she learns from her mother that the relationship with Inez’s biological father was one of love, not exploitation . These instances are noteworthy precisely because they stand out in a general atmosphere of racial oppression, if not outright violence; after all, this is a memoir of passing because Inez could not get good jobs if her race were known. On the other side of the color line, the young Inez, because of her skin color, is treated so badly by the local black children that she is sent first to Athens and then to Atlanta to go to school. Much later, her own son...