Robert Jones Jr.

Of all the women in my life, particularly the elder women who are no longer with us, people such as my great grandmother, Mary, and her sisters.

And she had at least eight of those.

She's a little bit of my grandmother, Corrine, and a little bit of my grandmother, Ruby.

She is all the Black women in my life who have endured something.

who have held on to something, whether it be a secret or a memory.

She is, for me, the representation of, when we see in these films and books, we see the character of the mammy.

Maggie is actually in conflict with that image, that she is not wanting to be the nurturer of these children, that she is not wanting to be in the kitchen cooking for her oppressors.

She wants to be free.

And that's who Maggie is to me.

She is the embodiment of liberation at any age and at any cost.

Oh, I'm so glad you asked me this question.

I have so many books.

I'm currently reading The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Disha Philyaw.

It was nominated for a National Book Award earlier.

It is just a phenomenal collection of short stories about the lives of Black women and their relationships to the church, their relationships to each other, their relationships to men, and the disappointments and the difficulties they face in a patriarchal society and a patriarchal religion.

It's just so, so, so lovely.

Next up for me is a book called The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.

which is getting rave reviews.

It is sitting at the top of the New York Times bestseller list right now for at least the last couple of weeks about two Black women who are so fair-skinned that they can pass as white, and one chooses to do so while the other one does not, and it examines where those paths lead them.

And it just sounds so absolutely intriguing that I have to read it.