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Mama Day | Introduction

Gloria Naylor's first novel, The Women of Brewster Place (1982), made her an overnight success, but her third novel, Mama Day (1988), solidified her reputation as one of the foremost authors of the African-American women's fiction renaissance, along with Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara and others. Although reviewers were initially confused by the novel's mixture of realism and the supernatural, most readers consider Mama Day a powerful and richly-layered depiction of how the past and the present, the real and the unreal, the living and the dead, the natural and the supernatural converge in the lives of African-Americans.

The novel juxtaposes the story of a successful African-American businessman, George, who has grown up in New York City cut off from any sense of where he or his people came from, with that of a young African-American woman, Cocoa, who must come to terms with her powerful ancestral legacy. Their clash and uneasy union is brought to a head when they visit Cocoa's home, Willow Springs, a magical place that holds the secrets of Cocoa's past and the key to her future.

Mama Day Summary

Part I
Though Mama Day is told from three perspectives, the story itself is a simple one; it presents the courtship and marriage of Cocoa and George, and finally George's death in Cocoa's ancestral home, Willow Springs. Cocoa first sees George in New York, where they both live, and then meets him formally at a job interview, which does not go well because Cocoa must spend August in Willow Springs with her grandmother, Abigail, and her great-aunt, Miranda, known as Mama Day. Cocoa does not get the job with George's engineering firm, but on her return from Willow Springs, she sends George a note. He in turn sends her application to a client, and asks her to dinner. Their first date is disastrous, but George decides to show Cocoa what he loves about New York City. Meanwhile, in Willow Springs, Mama Day helps Bernice to conceive a child, and Junior Lee leaves his common-law wife, Frances, for another woman, Ruby.

Cocoa loves seeing New York with George, although their regular outings don't seem romantic to her. After George tells her about his girlfriend Shawn, Cocoa tells him she doesn't have to see him again. Later he comes to Cocoa's apartment, and they make love for the first time. The two have fallen in love, but there are still conflicts between them. Cocoa feels that George doesn't open up about his feelings. When she sees his old girlfriend in his building, she fights with him, calling him a "son of a bitch," then accepts a date with an old boyfriend. George waits outside the old boyfriend's apartment all night, then tells her he doesn't like being called a son of a bitch because his mother was a prostitute and... » Complete Mama Day Summary