Push
By Sapphire
Random House Audiobooks, $18
3 hours
ISBN 06795451684
Review by Sukey Howard
Push, a first novel by the performance poet Sapphire, is one of the most powerful audio presentations I have ever heard. Its power is raw and true, the kind that can make you cry a lot, laugh a little, want to throttle the smug congressman who would cut funds for education, and come away with renewed hope for humankind. Claireece Precious Jones is 16, poor, black, fat, sexually abused by both her parents, pregnant for the second time with her father's child, unloved, unwanted, and illiterate. But there's a fierce longing in Precious to learn to read, as though that will somehow liberate and redeem her. A fortunate quirk in the system lands her in an alternative school where a tough dedicated woman teaches her not only to read and write, but to discover her own worth. This is a difficult novel to read page by page; Sapphire writes in Precious's vernacular, approximating her minimal, attenuated language. But as Sapphire reads it aloud you get the full impact. It's a stunner -- strong, passionate, constantly affecting.
Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio every month.
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