![]() ![]() ![]() Audrey and Caroline are neighbors in a multi-class yet insular African-American community and Townsend is more than convincing at creating this world. The fifties, with all of its layered, complicated beauty, is a fascinating time in the history of black America to mine–the wealth of the post-war era has started to trickle down and Jim Crow is on its way out, courtesy of the black institutions that have been growing in influence since emancipation. ![]() Two black teenaged girls, Audrey and Caroline, are the protagonists of Saint Monkey and the story is told in alternating points of view as they grow up in Eastern Kentucky during the 1950s. The comparison of Townsend to Morrison is appropriate like The Bluest Eye, Saint Monkey, Jacinda’s debut novel, is a mature, coherent and well-articulated work of art that announces the arrival of an important voice in contemporary literature that isn’t timid about creating a nuanced portrait of black America or centralizing the stories of women. Toni Morrison wrote her first novel, The Bluest Eye, like this, too, in between her full time teaching job and parenting her sons alone. In an interview with Fiction Writers’ Review, Jacinda Townsend shares that she tackled the writing of her novel in spurts, between her daughter’s naps. ![]()
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