The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for her novel The Color Purple, which was preceded by The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Meridian. Her other bestselling novels include By the Light of My Father's Smile, Possessing the Secret of Joy and The Temple of My Familiar. She is also the author of two collections of short stories, three collections of essays, five volumes of poetry and several children's books. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Walker now lives in Northern California.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

are the stories that came to me to be told after the close of a magical marriage to an extraordinary man that ended in a less-than-magical divorce. I found myself unmoored, unmated, ungrounded in a way that challenged everything I'd ever thought about human relationships. Situated squarely in that terrifying paradise called freedom, precipitously out on so many emotional limbs, it was as if I had been born; and in fact I was being reborn as the woman I was to become."

So says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker about her beautiful new book, in which "one of the best American writers today" (The Washington Post) gives us superb stories based on rich truths from her own experience. Imbued with Walker's wise philosophy and understanding of people, the spirit, sex and love, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart begins with a lyrical, autobiographical story of a marriage set in the violent and volatile Deep South during the early years of the civil rights movement. Walke

Aus dem Klappentext

are the stories that came to me to be told after the close of a magical marriage to an extraordinary man that ended in a less-than-magical divorce. I found myself unmoored, unmated, ungrounded in a way that challenged everything I'd ever thought about human relationships. Situated squarely in that terrifying paradise called freedom, precipitously out on so many emotional limbs, it was as if I had been born; and in fact I was being reborn as the woman I was to become."<br><br>So says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker about her beautiful new book, in which "one of the best American writers today" (The Washington Post) gives us superb stories based on rich truths from her own experience. Imbued with Walker's wise philosophy and understanding of people, the spirit, sex and love, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart begins with a lyrical, autobiographical story of a marriage set in the violent and volatile Deep South during the early years of the civil rights movement. Walke

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Excerpt

To My Young Husband: Memoir of a Marriage

Beloved,

A few days ago I went to see the little house on R. Street where we were sohappy. Before traveling back to Mississippi I had not thought much about it. Itseemed so far away, almost in another dimension. Whenever I did remember thehouse it was vibrant, filled with warmth and light, even though, as you know, alot of my time there was served in rage, in anger, in hopelessness and despair.Days when the white white walls, cool against the brutal summer heat, were morebars than walls.

You do not talk to me now, a fate I could not have imagined twenty years ago. Itis true we say the usual greetings, when we have to, over the phone: How areyou? Have you heard from Our Child? But beyond that, really nothing. Nothing ofthe secrets, memories, good and bad, that we shared. Nothing of the laughterthat used to creep up on us as we ate together late at night at the kitchentable?perhaps after one of your poker games?and then wash over us in acackling wave. You were always helpless before anything that struck you asfunny, and I reveled in the ease with which, urging each other on, sometimes inour own voices, more often in a welter of black and white Southern and Brooklynand Yiddish accents?which always felt as if our grandparents were joking witheach other?we'd crumple over our plates laughing, as tears came to our eyes.After tallying up your winnings?you usually did win?and taking a shower?as Ichatted with you through the glass?you'd crawl wearily into bed. We'd rolltoward each other's outstretched arms, still chuckling, and sleep the sleep ofthe deeply amused.

I went back with the woman I love now. She had never been South, never been toMississippi, though her grandparents are buried in one of the towns you used tosue racists in. We took the Natchez Trace from Memphis, stopping several timesat points of interest along the way. Halfway to Jackson we stopped at whatappeared to be a large vacant house, with a dogtrot that intrigued us from theroad. But when we walked inside two women were quietly quilting. One of them wasbent over a large wooden frame that covered most of the floor, like the one mymother used to have; the other sat in a rocking chair stitching together one ofthe most beautiful crazy quilts I've ever seen. It reminded me of the quilt Imade while we were married, the one made of scraps from my African dresses. Thehuge dresses, kaftans really, that I sewed myself and wore when I was pregnantwith Our Child.

The house on R. Street looked so small I did not recognize it at first. It wasnearly dark by the time we found it, and sitting in a curve as it does it alwaysseemed to be seeking anonymity. The tree we planted when Our Child was born andwhich I expected to tower over me, as Our Child now does, is not there; onereason I did not recognize the house. When I couldn't decide whether the house Iwas staring at was the one we used to laugh so much in, I went next door andasked for the Belts. Mrs. Belt (Did I ever know her name and call her by it? Wasit perhaps Mildred?) opened the door. She recognized me immediately. I told herI was looking for our house. She said: That's it. She was surrounded bygrandchildren. The little girl we knew, riding her tricycle about the yard, hasmade her a grandmother many times over. Her hair is pressed and waved, and iscompletely gray. She has aged. Though I know I have also, this shocks me. Mr.Belt soon comes to the door. He is graying as well, and has shaved his head. Heis stocky and assertive. Self-satisfied. He insists on hugging me, which,because we've never hugged before, feels strange. He offers to walk me nextdoor, and does.

Its gate is the only thing left of the wooden fence we put up. The sweet gumtree that dominated the backyard and turned to red and gold in autumn is dying.It is little more than a trunk. The yard itself, which I've thought of all theseyears as big, is tiny. I remember our dogs: Myshkin, the fickle beloved, stolen,leaving us to search and search and weep and weep; and Andrew, the Germanshepherd with the soulful eyes and tender heart, whose big teeth frightened meafter Our Child was born.

The carport is miniscule. I wonder if you remember the steaks we used to grillthere in summer, because the house was too hot for cooking, and the chilledLambrusco we bought by the case to drink each night with dinner.

The woman who lives there now, whose first act on buying the house was to ripout my writing desk, either isn't home or refuses to open the door. Not the samedoor we had, with its three panes at the top covered with plastic "stainedglass." No, an even tackier, more flimsy door, with the number 1443 affixed toits bottom in black vinyl and gold adhesive.

I am disappointed because I do want to see inside, and I want my lover to see ittoo. I want to show her the living room, where our red couches sat. The moonlamp. The low table made from a wooden door on which I kept flowers, leaves,Georgia field straw, in a gray crockery vase. The walls on which hung our Levy'sbread poster: The little black boy and "You Don't Have to Be Jewish to LoveLevy's." The white-and-black SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee)poster of the large woman holding the small child, and the red-and-white onewith the old man holding the hand of a small girl that helped me write about thebond between grandfather and granddaughter that is at the heart of my firstnovel. There by the kitchen door was the very funny Ernst lithograph, a somberCharles White drawing across from it.

In Tupelo where I lectured I saw an old friend who remembered the house betterthan I did. She remembered the smallness of the kitchen (which I'd never thoughtof as small) and how the round "captain's table" we bought was wedged in acorner. She recalled the polished brown wood. Even the daisy-dotted placemats.The big yellow, brown-eyed daisy stuck to the brown refrigerator door.

I wanted to see the nondescript bathroom. If I looked into the mirror would Isee the serious face I had then? The deeply sun-browned skin? The bushy hair?The grief that steadily undermined the gains in levity, after each of theassassinations of little known and unsung heroes; after the assassination of Dr.King?

I wanted to see Our Child's room. From the porch I could see her yellowshutters, unchanged since we left. Yellow, to let her know right away that lifecan be cheerful and bright. I wanted to see our room. Its giant bed occupyingmost of the floor, in frank admission that bed was important to us and thatwhenever possible, especially after air-conditioning, that is where we stayed.Not making love only, but making a universe. Sleeping, eating, reading andwriting books, listening to music, cuddling, talking on the phone, watching MaryTyler Moore, playing with Our Child. Our rifle a silent sentry in the corner.

The old friend whom I saw in Tupelo still lives in Jackson. When we met twodecades ago she had just come home from a college in the North where she taughtliterature. She'd decided to come back to Jackson, now that opportunities wereopening up, thanks to you and so many others who gave some of their lives andsometimes all of their life, for this to happen. She hoped to marry herchildhood sweetheart, raise a family, study law. Now she tells me she hates law.That it stifles her creativity and cuts her off from community and the life ofthe young. I tell her what I have recently heard of you. That, according to OurChild, you are now writing plays, and that this makes you happy. That you leftcivil rights law, at which you were brilliant, and are now quite successful inthe corporate world. Though the writing of the plays makes me wonder if perhapsyou too have found something missing in your chosen profession?

She remembers us, she says, as two of the happiest, most in love people she'dever seen. It didn't seem possible that we would ever part.

It is only days later, when I am back in California, that I realize she herselfplayed a role in our drifting apart. This summer she has promised to come visitme, up in the country in Mendocino?where everyone my age has a secret,sorrowful past of loving and suffering during the Sixties time of war?and Iwill tell her what it was.

Maybe you remember her? Her name is F. It was she who placed a certain novel bya forgotten black woman novelist into my hands. I fell in love with both thenovel and the novelist, who had died in obscurity while I was still reading thelong-dead white writers, mostly male, pushed on everyone entering junior high.F.'s gift changed my life. I became obsessed, crazed with devotion. Passionate.All of this, especially the passion and devotion, I wanted to share with you.

You and I had always shared literature. Do you remember how, on our very firstnight alone together, in a motel room in Greenwood, Mississippi, we read theBible to each other? And how we felt a special affinity with the poet who wrote"The Song of Solomon?" We'd barely met, and shared the room more out of fearthan desire. It was a motel and an area that had not been "cleared."Desegregated. We'd been spotted by hostile whites earlier in the day in thedining room. The next day, after our sleepless night, they would attempt tochase us out of town, perhaps run us off the road, but local black mencourageously intervened.

Over the years we shared Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy. Orwell. LangstonHughes. Sean O'Faolain. Ellison. But you would not read the thin paperback novelby this black woman I loved. It was as if you drew a line, in this curiousterritory. I will love you completely, you seemed to say, except for this. Butsharing this book with you seemed everything.

I wonder if you've read it, even now.

Our Child was conceived. Grew up. Went to a large Eastern university. Read thebook. She found it there on the required reading list, where I and otherslabored for a decade to make sure it would be. She tells me now she read itbefore she even left home, when she was in her early teens. She says I presentedit to her with a quiet intensity, and with a special look in my eyes. She sayswe used to read passages from it while we cooked dinner for each other, and thatshe used to join me as I laughed and sometimes cried.

What can one say at this late date, my young husband? Except what was surelysurmised at the beginning of time. Life is a mystery. Also, love does not acceptbarriers of any kind. Not even that of Time itself. So that in the small housethat seemed so large during the years of happiness we gave each other, I remain

Yours,
Tatala

Copyright © 2000 Alice Walker. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-679-45587-6