Po Man's Child

by Marci Blackman

Overview

After sustaining a serious injury during an S/M scene, Po Childs checks herself into a psychiatric hospital where she recalls her life's most memorable incidents and unconventional relatives. After a poignant exploration of her family's curses and blessings, Po allows the healing process to begin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780916397593
Publisher:	Manic D Press, Inc.
Publication date:	04/01/1999
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	728,834
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

What People are Saying About This

Jewelle Gomez

Marci Blackman's dramatic style and vibrant characters make her a fine storyteller. Her voice rings clear, inviting us all into her passionate and dangerous world.

Eileen Myles

Po Man's Child is some kind of brand new classic.

Editorial Reviews

Like a comtemporary Anne Tyler, Blackman writes of a family where every member comes with an ample set of peculiarities, but still at the end you are left with the feeling that you know these people, that they could be your own family.

BUST Magazine

A vivid assortment of characters inhabit Blackman's first novel, a haunting, dark and visceral story of family entanglements, failure and survival. When she was young, Po Childs numbed herself emotionally to such a degree that she could only feel when she sank the blade of a knife into her skin. Now 27, she is still grappling with the knife. When S&M play with her lover, Mary, goes awry, Po checks herself into a mental hospital for 72 hours of "observation and rest." Here she recollects her family history. Her father, Gregory Childs, a once aspiring jazz musician, wins his store, the Party Shack, on a poker hand, only to quietly gamble his business away. Her mother, Lillian, regretfully gives up her dreams of college and career to raise Po, sister Onya, and brother Bobby. When Gregory has an affair with his brother's (white) wife, Jessica, everyone becomes unhinged. Ray, the cuckolded husband, repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempts suicide, and Lillian succumbs first to alcohol, then prescription drugs. Onya has a nervous breakdown, while Bobby escapes first into the arms of his imaginary playmates, then into the abyss of heroin addiction, and finally into the family of the Ministers of Allah. Bobby visits Po at the hospital, with resisting Onya in tow, determined to convince Po to attend their father's funeral. Although the plot is unnecessarily convoluted, Blackman's tale of a family's bleak and twisted history strikingly illustrates the way even a wounded heart will expand to accommodate the many kinds of love (both nurturing and frightening) it craves. Author tour. (June) FYI: Blackman edited Manic D's anthology Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco, an ALA Gay and Lesbian Book Award Finalist. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly