PAPERBACK ISBN: 0-88258-154-6      $31.95

336 pages; 5.5 x 8.5 inches

by Kristin Hunter

God Bless The Child, by Kristin Hunter, is a novel about Rosie Fleming—young, black, poor, ambitious—growing up tough in mean city streets.  Rosie’s brash wheeling and dealing and reckless spending puts her on a collision course with disaster.  Hers is a tale of a driven life, irrepressible spirit, and early unraveling as Rosie’s illusions of a gilded world of privilege, fostered by her snobbish domestic servant grandmother, contrast sharply with the hapless ways of her alcoholic mother, who seems resigned to a life of poverty.  Rosie is nonetheless torn by a need for love and approval from both. In this com­pelling novel of pathos and anger, Hunter’s protagonist rises, like the child in Billie Holiday’s poignant ballad, to “get her own”—only to become a tragic victim of her own delusions and the American Dream. 

A scholarly introduction to this edition of God Bless the Child, provided by literary scholar Darwin T. Turner, places this novel squarely within the context of the times in which it was written. This edition also con­tains an appendix of reviews that appeared when the novel was first published.

© 1998-2000 Howard University, all rights reserved.  Last updated:11 January 2006.
HOWARD UNIVERSITY PRESS.  2225 Georgia Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20059.  Phone (202) 238-2570
Webmaster: howardupress@howard.edu
Design & Production: Jamie Walker  
DISCLAIMER