Daughters by Paule Marshall
MacMillan Publishing 1991
LJ’s Rating: 3 *** Beyond Good
Daughters, a novel set in both New York City and the West Indies, explores the interrelationships between Ursa Mackenzie, the educated and independent daughter; Estelle, her American mother; Primus, her Caribbean born and bred father; and a host of other fully developed characters whose presence serve to round out Ursa’s existence.
The story opens on a controversial subject matter: Ursa’s abortion. Author Marshall writes: ‘Not even a good 2 hours and it’s all over. The receptionist, a woman in her late twenties with sculptured nails and expertly made-up Latina good looks, places the bottle containing the capsules into a mini shopping bag–like the kind used for cosmetics in a department store–and hands it to Ursa over the counter, along with a thin, bound sheaf of postoperative instructions that resembles a chapbook of poems.’
The ending is just as dramatic as we witness Ursa’s revenge over her father’s long standing control. What happens in between is that Ursa (somewhat belatedly) experiences the beginnings of womanhood through a stagnant male/female love relationship; a gratifying woman-to-woman friendship; and the severing of familial ties (namely from Primus, her father) which threaten to choke her sense of self.
As Daughters comes to a close, Ursa MacKenzie emerges a hero. She triumphs finally despite several mini-crises and manages to take control of her life by facing her problems head on.
Daughters earns *** stars from me, LJ, for Beyond Good. What makes this novel particularly fascinating is its fullness of characterization. By this I mean that as each character is introduced, he or she acts in accordance with how they were initially developed. This makes for interesting reading because the reader is not only forced to understand the character in question, but also what motivates them.