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Gorilla, My Love
Fifteen unforgettable short stories from an essential author of African American fiction gives us compelling portraits of a wide range of unforgettable characters, from sassy children to cunning old men, from uptown New York to rural North Carolina.
"Bambara grabs you by the throat ... she dazzles, she charms." — Chicago Daily News
A young girl suffers her first betrayal. A widow flirts with an elderly blind man against the wishes of her grown-up children. A neighborhood loan shark teaches a white social worker a lesson in responsibility. And there is more. Sharing the world of Toni Cade Bambara's "straight-up fiction" is a stunning experience.
"Bambara grabs you by the throat ... she dazzles, she charms." — Chicago Daily News
A young girl suffers her first betrayal. A widow flirts with an elderly blind man against the wishes of her grown-up children. A neighborhood loan shark teaches a white social worker a lesson in responsibility. And there is more. Sharing the world of Toni Cade Bambara's "straight-up fiction" is a stunning experience.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Toni Cade Bambara
42 books427 followersToni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade (March 25, 1939 – December 9, 1995) was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor.
Toni Cade Bambara was born in New York City to parents Walter and Helen (Henderson) Cade. She grew up in Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant (Brooklyn), Queens and New Jersey. In 1970 she changed her name to include the name of a West African ethnic group, Bambara.
Bambara graduated from Queens College with a B.A. in Theater Arts/English Literature in 1959, then studied mime at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris, France. She also became interested in dance before completing her master's degree in American studies at City College, New York (from 1962), while serving as program director of Colony Settlement House in Brooklyn. She has also worked for New York social services and as a recreation director in the psychiatric ward of Metropolitan hospital. From 1965 to 1969 she was with City College's Search for Education, Elevation, Knowledge-program. She taught English, published material and worked with SEEK's black theatre group. She was made assistant professor of English at Rutgers University's new Livingston College in 1969, was visiting professor in Afro-American Studies at Emory University and at Atlanta University (1977), where she also taught at the School of Social Work (until 1979). She was writer-in-residence at Neighborhood Arts Center (1975–79), at Stephens College at Columbia, Missouri (1976) and at Atlanta's Spelman College (1978–79). From 1986 she taught film-script writing at Louis Massiah's Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia.
Bambara participated in several community and activist organizations, and her work was influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements of the 1960s. She went on propaganda trips to Cuba in 1973 and to Vietnam in 1975. She moved to Atlanta, GA, with her daughter, Karma Bene, and became a founding member of the Southern Collective of African-American Writers.
Toni Cade Bambara was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1993 and died of it in 1995, at the age of 56.
(from Wikipedia)
aka Toni Cade
Toni Cade Bambara was born in New York City to parents Walter and Helen (Henderson) Cade. She grew up in Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant (Brooklyn), Queens and New Jersey. In 1970 she changed her name to include the name of a West African ethnic group, Bambara.
Bambara graduated from Queens College with a B.A. in Theater Arts/English Literature in 1959, then studied mime at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris, France. She also became interested in dance before completing her master's degree in American studies at City College, New York (from 1962), while serving as program director of Colony Settlement House in Brooklyn. She has also worked for New York social services and as a recreation director in the psychiatric ward of Metropolitan hospital. From 1965 to 1969 she was with City College's Search for Education, Elevation, Knowledge-program. She taught English, published material and worked with SEEK's black theatre group. She was made assistant professor of English at Rutgers University's new Livingston College in 1969, was visiting professor in Afro-American Studies at Emory University and at Atlanta University (1977), where she also taught at the School of Social Work (until 1979). She was writer-in-residence at Neighborhood Arts Center (1975–79), at Stephens College at Columbia, Missouri (1976) and at Atlanta's Spelman College (1978–79). From 1986 she taught film-script writing at Louis Massiah's Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia.
Bambara participated in several community and activist organizations, and her work was influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements of the 1960s. She went on propaganda trips to Cuba in 1973 and to Vietnam in 1975. She moved to Atlanta, GA, with her daughter, Karma Bene, and became a founding member of the Southern Collective of African-American Writers.
Toni Cade Bambara was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1993 and died of it in 1995, at the age of 56.
(from Wikipedia)
aka Toni Cade
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February 3, 2019
For three years of my youth, I was a cheerleader, in junior high.
For two of those years, our squad would have been best described in one word: subpar. But, in our last year, we got a new coach and a new assistant, and both women declared, “We're going to the championships this year.”
Well, those ladies weren't kidding. Next thing we knew, we had given up every other aspect of our lives. We cheered every day but Sunday, going through our routine so compulsively, I had perpetual blisters on my hands and bruises up and down my thighs. I lived, breathed and ate that damn routine and I still remember it now, 30 years later.
We did indeed qualify for the championships and the day of the competition, our coaches required that we arrive there early so we could practice the routine over and over and over again. When they finally let us stop, we stood around, biting off our fingernails, watching the buses of the other cheerleaders arrive.
After hundreds of Caucasian girls had taken their places in the stands, one last, lone bus pulled up and a Black cheer squad and their coaches emerged. Now, this was 1983, and we lived outside of Miami, so it's not that our community wasn't multicultural, but I had never before encountered an entire squad of Black cheerleaders.
The crowd hushed a bit as the new arrivals took their places in the sea of white-capped waves and then we all got down to business.
It was an intense day, but when our squad performed. . . it was kismet. As soon as we finished our routine and were greeted with applause, we knew we couldn't have done it any better than we had. Our coaches were sobbing with joy as we headed back to the bleachers. (Clearly, those ladies needed an extramarital affair or a change of career or something new in their lives).
But, when the Black squad came up to perform their routine, I could not believe my eyes. Their team lacked the precision that our team had mastered, but they had something that you can not practice. They had a natural vivacity and a cohesiveness. . . a collective consciousness that gave me goosebumps. When they “cheered” it was like they were humming, buzzing, singing like they were alive. Their voices gave a guttural response to the pain and the joy in their souls. They were unlike anything else that happened that day, and to this day, I will go out of my way to watch predominantly Black cheer squads compete. They strike a magical balance that just can't be duplicated by other squads.
Well, to sum it up. . . we won first place. . . (an achievement that was never to be repeated again), and I was thrilled when they announced that the Black squad came in second place. It was one of those rare days when things just worked out right.
And, I hadn't thought about that day in years, but when I read Toni Cade Bambara's collection of 15 short stories, Gorilla, My Love, this week, she brought it all back.
She brought back the buzz, the hum, the Voice of the soul. She brought back the lone Voice and the collective Voice and the Voice of one girl, and the Voice of all women.
I had forgotten how much I love Ms. Bambara's rhythm. Her stories sometimes lack precision, and they sometimes lack stamina, but they never lack soul.
If you read only one work of hers in your lifetime, may I suggest the very last story of this collection, “The Johnson Girls?”
I want to live in that story, crawl into that bedroom with its young women and its bitter conflict and its nail polish and hurt feelings and healing. Everything that ever matters in life exists in that one little room.
It's brilliant, Ms. Bambara.
Much of this collection makes my teeth ache with joy, makes me feel as alive as I did watching those cheerleaders make something as stupid as a cheer feel meaningful.
It is good to be reminded that we are beautiful in what we are, as long as we are honest while we're doing it.
The only proper mask to wear in life is your own damn face.
For two of those years, our squad would have been best described in one word: subpar. But, in our last year, we got a new coach and a new assistant, and both women declared, “We're going to the championships this year.”
Well, those ladies weren't kidding. Next thing we knew, we had given up every other aspect of our lives. We cheered every day but Sunday, going through our routine so compulsively, I had perpetual blisters on my hands and bruises up and down my thighs. I lived, breathed and ate that damn routine and I still remember it now, 30 years later.
We did indeed qualify for the championships and the day of the competition, our coaches required that we arrive there early so we could practice the routine over and over and over again. When they finally let us stop, we stood around, biting off our fingernails, watching the buses of the other cheerleaders arrive.
After hundreds of Caucasian girls had taken their places in the stands, one last, lone bus pulled up and a Black cheer squad and their coaches emerged. Now, this was 1983, and we lived outside of Miami, so it's not that our community wasn't multicultural, but I had never before encountered an entire squad of Black cheerleaders.
The crowd hushed a bit as the new arrivals took their places in the sea of white-capped waves and then we all got down to business.
It was an intense day, but when our squad performed. . . it was kismet. As soon as we finished our routine and were greeted with applause, we knew we couldn't have done it any better than we had. Our coaches were sobbing with joy as we headed back to the bleachers. (Clearly, those ladies needed an extramarital affair or a change of career or something new in their lives).
But, when the Black squad came up to perform their routine, I could not believe my eyes. Their team lacked the precision that our team had mastered, but they had something that you can not practice. They had a natural vivacity and a cohesiveness. . . a collective consciousness that gave me goosebumps. When they “cheered” it was like they were humming, buzzing, singing like they were alive. Their voices gave a guttural response to the pain and the joy in their souls. They were unlike anything else that happened that day, and to this day, I will go out of my way to watch predominantly Black cheer squads compete. They strike a magical balance that just can't be duplicated by other squads.
Well, to sum it up. . . we won first place. . . (an achievement that was never to be repeated again), and I was thrilled when they announced that the Black squad came in second place. It was one of those rare days when things just worked out right.
And, I hadn't thought about that day in years, but when I read Toni Cade Bambara's collection of 15 short stories, Gorilla, My Love, this week, she brought it all back.
She brought back the buzz, the hum, the Voice of the soul. She brought back the lone Voice and the collective Voice and the Voice of one girl, and the Voice of all women.
I had forgotten how much I love Ms. Bambara's rhythm. Her stories sometimes lack precision, and they sometimes lack stamina, but they never lack soul.
If you read only one work of hers in your lifetime, may I suggest the very last story of this collection, “The Johnson Girls?”
I want to live in that story, crawl into that bedroom with its young women and its bitter conflict and its nail polish and hurt feelings and healing. Everything that ever matters in life exists in that one little room.
It's brilliant, Ms. Bambara.
Much of this collection makes my teeth ache with joy, makes me feel as alive as I did watching those cheerleaders make something as stupid as a cheer feel meaningful.
It is good to be reminded that we are beautiful in what we are, as long as we are honest while we're doing it.
The only proper mask to wear in life is your own damn face.
May 19, 2016
I am a white woman with what might meaningfully be called a ‘middle class’ British state education. A few months ago I attended Bare Lit Festival and in one of the talks there was some discussion of the implications of publishers’ belief that their market is middle class middle aged white women. Eventually a black woman in the audience spoke up to say enough time had been given to this topic; here’s an audience primarily of readers and writers of colour, and can we please talk about what this audience wants and does and feels? And she was right. But one of the effects of those publisher assumptions (an effect of publishers’ whiteness, is that books that don’t reflect the perspectives or experiences or fantasies or desires for an other to eat of middle class white women are less likely to be published. I don’t know how it is across the Atlantic but my guess is that when this book first appeared in the year of my birth 1984, Usian women who were black & poor found fewer books in which to find themselves reflected than those who were white & well off, and this incandescent text was an exception.
If seems to me that this is a book that successfully ignores the white gaze entirely (note to self: Read Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination soon). Personally, I took a while to get used to the vocabulary, and some words and stories remain far enough out of my orbit that I grasp their meaning and import only loosely.
Yet there is a sense of tenderness and exultation that held me and carried me into and through the lives of these women and girls like the mood of the crowd at a protest march. I felt their power and grief, I was awed by their creative resourcefulness and acts of self-determination and communion.
In ‘The Lesson’ a group of poor black kids are taken to an upmarket toy store and stunned by the prices. The narrator responds with disgust, rejecting the challenge levelled by the educated black woman who has brought them there. Her friend Sugar, on the other hand, rises to it, grasping the need to fight injustice. Often the stories work in this way, with the narrator’s viewpoint played gently and sympathetically against what I feel to be the author’s opinion. In this way, she demonstrates the obstacles to even arriving at a liberatory perspective in a culture of domination as a marginalised person.
The pieces have a feeling of sweet intimacy and interconnectedness; they feel like episodes in the life of a single community. This is achieved less by continuity of events but by a limited range of names and sense of community within each story.
I feel… vicarious relief! Toni Cade Bambara opened a window and the oxygen floods in to give breath to stifled voices of black women and girls. Yet their full significance is something I will only be able to unravel and absorb on rereading. As in Toni Morrison’s work, there is absolutely zero gloss, no shining hero(in)es. It is ugly because life is ugly, and beautiful because freedom is beautiful and the truth will set you free.
If seems to me that this is a book that successfully ignores the white gaze entirely (note to self: Read Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination soon). Personally, I took a while to get used to the vocabulary, and some words and stories remain far enough out of my orbit that I grasp their meaning and import only loosely.
Yet there is a sense of tenderness and exultation that held me and carried me into and through the lives of these women and girls like the mood of the crowd at a protest march. I felt their power and grief, I was awed by their creative resourcefulness and acts of self-determination and communion.
In ‘The Lesson’ a group of poor black kids are taken to an upmarket toy store and stunned by the prices. The narrator responds with disgust, rejecting the challenge levelled by the educated black woman who has brought them there. Her friend Sugar, on the other hand, rises to it, grasping the need to fight injustice. Often the stories work in this way, with the narrator’s viewpoint played gently and sympathetically against what I feel to be the author’s opinion. In this way, she demonstrates the obstacles to even arriving at a liberatory perspective in a culture of domination as a marginalised person.
The pieces have a feeling of sweet intimacy and interconnectedness; they feel like episodes in the life of a single community. This is achieved less by continuity of events but by a limited range of names and sense of community within each story.
I feel… vicarious relief! Toni Cade Bambara opened a window and the oxygen floods in to give breath to stifled voices of black women and girls. Yet their full significance is something I will only be able to unravel and absorb on rereading. As in Toni Morrison’s work, there is absolutely zero gloss, no shining hero(in)es. It is ugly because life is ugly, and beautiful because freedom is beautiful and the truth will set you free.
September 26, 2023
The best of feminist and activist Toni Cade Bambara’s short fiction’s written in a gloriously melodic, vernacular style, vivid, immediate and often suffused with wry, deadpan humour. The majority of the fifteen pieces making up this collection from 1972 are detailed close-ups, meticulous recreations of key moments in her characters’ lives. My favourites here are her Harlem-based narratives which feature a recurring cast but are frequently centred on the resilient, irrepressible Hazel who’s coming to terms with growing up and the strange ways of adults, as in the evocative title piece “Gorilla, My Love” a marvellous, complex exploration of power and betrayal. Although Bambara cited her major influences as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, she has a striking, distinctive voice and an excellent feel for place and the poetry of the everyday. But she’s particularly outstanding when she’s exploring the vicissitudes of childhood and the challenges faced by African American girls. Although there are some weaker entries here overall it’s a captivating compilation, making it easy to see why Bambara was so highly regarded and so fiercely championed by fellow writers like Toni Morrison, her close friend and editor.
January 5, 2021
I read this because Kiese Laymon told me to in his book Heavy. He was right. I'm not a big fan of short stories, but I am a fan of people who do words well and Toni Cade Bambara is obviously someone with an arsenal of literary brushes to paint the fullest sorts of pictures.
July 7, 2020
Excellent collection of stories. Young black women, predominantly poor, usually tough and dynamic and actively working to find routes within and through the massive racial and socio-economic obstacles surrounding them. Expertly written - nothing flashy, but incredibly well controlled and with a subtle use of a wide variety of styles and voices. Highly recommended.
March 12, 2018
This collection is a toss up...the first few stories are great; easy, colorful language, and vividly drawn, feisty characters. There are also recurring characters from story to story, which sort of ties a few of them together. Overall, this collection felt very one-note. Some stories also felt too overworked and forced. If I'm reading a string of (mostly) first-person POV vignettes, there has to be a coherent narrative thread that moves the story along; it wasn't quite there, and three or four of these stories were literally impossible to understand (yikes!)
February 6, 2017
Happy but not at all surprised to find this for sale at the Varina Public Library. That is correct: predominantly white rural Virginians ain't really feeling this badass author "strongly informed by radical politics, feminism, and African American culture." Boggles thee mind. Their loss. I've only read the first story, about a middle-aged woman who sees no reason not to show some cleavage, booze it up, and dance all sensual (no room left for the Holy Ghost!) with a flirty elderly blind man at a big community event, to the chagrin of her politically-minded, more serious kiddos. It's quite funny and smart. I get the feeling that Bambara's characters are all fighting good fights by living lives worth living. It's the sort of America we mean to have, but rarely seem to. Looking forward to the rest of this.
It gets gradually darker, uncannily. I mean it is really quite dark. And terribly true. Still funny, still smart, penetratingly so. I'm going to go ahead and say that although I've only read the half of it tonight, everyone should find this very first thing tomorrow. I'm really quite serious.
...
Just finished. Am reeling. Reeling
It gets gradually darker, uncannily. I mean it is really quite dark. And terribly true. Still funny, still smart, penetratingly so. I'm going to go ahead and say that although I've only read the half of it tonight, everyone should find this very first thing tomorrow. I'm really quite serious.
...
Just finished. Am reeling. Reeling
March 16, 2019
Le donne della comunità nera. Con la loro forza, il loro essere al di fuori degli schemi, la loro lingua tagliente e la voglia di non farsi mettere sotto i piedi da nessuno. Non so perché, ma la cosa più vicina alla mia cultura che ho trovato mentre leggevo, era pensare alla prima volta che ho ascoltato per intero ’The miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Una referenza musicale, non casuale, perché in effetti, l’atteggiamento delle protagoniste dei racconti è più simile a quel mondo che negli occhi di oggi vediamo riflesso dalle esponenti della cultura musicale. E in origine, la scrittura della Toni Cade Bambara è molto musicale.
Il sentimento nella lettura di una scrittura così connotata culturalmente è stato quello di trovarmi di fronte a una scrittura profondamente ‘nera’. Cioè, qualcosa che assolutamente non potrebbe essere stato scritto da nessun altro.
La maggior parte delle protagoniste sono donne. Forti, senza peli sulla lingua. Sopravviventi, le ha definite l’autrice - e in effetti, hai quell’impressione: loro sono quelle che se la cavano, o che impareranno a cavarsela nella vita, che sopravviveranno ai pregiudizi e alle ingiustizie sociali che piagano ancora oggi una parte della società americana, figuriamoci all’epoca. Sono anche ragazzine-ragazze-donne per le quali è facile trovare simpatia.
Loro vedono, una via d’uscita, un modo di farcela. Loro sono forti, non si arrendono, non si lasciano schiacciare dalle convenzioni sociali. Alla fine, c’è sempre un modo per uscire dal mondo di povertà e oppressione, una speranza. Molto importante è anche il contesto di Harlem, quartiere black per eccellenza e patria della Renaissance. È come fosse un personaggio collettivo, particolarmente vivo e presente nelle vicende.
Una raccolta preziosa, uno spaccato di mondo che batte e vive. Uno straordinario racconto di vita che è anche abbastanza attuale, purtroppo.
Il sentimento nella lettura di una scrittura così connotata culturalmente è stato quello di trovarmi di fronte a una scrittura profondamente ‘nera’. Cioè, qualcosa che assolutamente non potrebbe essere stato scritto da nessun altro.
La maggior parte delle protagoniste sono donne. Forti, senza peli sulla lingua. Sopravviventi, le ha definite l’autrice - e in effetti, hai quell’impressione: loro sono quelle che se la cavano, o che impareranno a cavarsela nella vita, che sopravviveranno ai pregiudizi e alle ingiustizie sociali che piagano ancora oggi una parte della società americana, figuriamoci all’epoca. Sono anche ragazzine-ragazze-donne per le quali è facile trovare simpatia.
Loro vedono, una via d’uscita, un modo di farcela. Loro sono forti, non si arrendono, non si lasciano schiacciare dalle convenzioni sociali. Alla fine, c’è sempre un modo per uscire dal mondo di povertà e oppressione, una speranza. Molto importante è anche il contesto di Harlem, quartiere black per eccellenza e patria della Renaissance. È come fosse un personaggio collettivo, particolarmente vivo e presente nelle vicende.
Una raccolta preziosa, uno spaccato di mondo che batte e vive. Uno straordinario racconto di vita che è anche abbastanza attuale, purtroppo.
January 10, 2011
A number of 5 star short stories in this collection, some of the best I've ever read. Even if you're not a short story fan, you might like this. Interesting characters, thought-provoking twists, and overall good storytelling. I particularly love the feisty little girls that show up.
In her essay Writer to Writer: Remembering Toni Cade Bambara, Bell Hooks says "Throughout her life Bambara was a champion of the Black poor and working class...Few black writers have captured the wit and humor of black life as skillfully as Bambara. She recognized the role of laughter in struggles for decolonization. To her, laughter was a way to dissent. The oppositional perspectives black people used to resist dehumanization were consistently evoked in her stories."
In her essay Writer to Writer: Remembering Toni Cade Bambara, Bell Hooks says "Throughout her life Bambara was a champion of the Black poor and working class...Few black writers have captured the wit and humor of black life as skillfully as Bambara. She recognized the role of laughter in struggles for decolonization. To her, laughter was a way to dissent. The oppositional perspectives black people used to resist dehumanization were consistently evoked in her stories."
March 30, 2018
Sinossi:
“Durante una festa elettorale per il Potere Nero, una donna di mezza età viene redarguita dai figli per aver ballato in modo troppo sensuale con un vecchio cieco. Un’assistente sociale cerca di insegnare ai bambini del quartiere il valore dei soldi portandoli in gita in un lussuoso negozio di giocattoli. Una ragazza riflette sulla figura della bisnonna, una fattucchiera in odore di pazzia che voleva dare l’assalto al mondo. Cinque amiche si riuniscono in camera da letto per discutere le strategie sentimentali da seguire con gli uomini.
Che racconti situazioni familiari oppure sociali, conflitti generazionali oppure razziali, contesti rurali oppure urbani, nelle sue storie Toni Cade Bambara affronta la realtà dei neri americani con grazia e umorismo: facendo parlare i suoi personaggi – spesso donne, spesso bambini – con la loro viva voce, mostrandoceli nella loro ordinaria litigiosità, ma anche nei momenti di crisi e nei non rari gesti di compassione e solidarietà.”
Specchio di varia umanità nera tra cui brillano, per freschezza e inventiva linguistica, le storie narrate dai bambini/bambine.
“Durante una festa elettorale per il Potere Nero, una donna di mezza età viene redarguita dai figli per aver ballato in modo troppo sensuale con un vecchio cieco. Un’assistente sociale cerca di insegnare ai bambini del quartiere il valore dei soldi portandoli in gita in un lussuoso negozio di giocattoli. Una ragazza riflette sulla figura della bisnonna, una fattucchiera in odore di pazzia che voleva dare l’assalto al mondo. Cinque amiche si riuniscono in camera da letto per discutere le strategie sentimentali da seguire con gli uomini.
Che racconti situazioni familiari oppure sociali, conflitti generazionali oppure razziali, contesti rurali oppure urbani, nelle sue storie Toni Cade Bambara affronta la realtà dei neri americani con grazia e umorismo: facendo parlare i suoi personaggi – spesso donne, spesso bambini – con la loro viva voce, mostrandoceli nella loro ordinaria litigiosità, ma anche nei momenti di crisi e nei non rari gesti di compassione e solidarietà.”
Specchio di varia umanità nera tra cui brillano, per freschezza e inventiva linguistica, le storie narrate dai bambini/bambine.
March 22, 2017
Toni Cade Bambara is deep- her works cover issues that reflect the social climate, in particular, for people of color. Most of her works contain a sense of “black awareness” and she is well known for the dialogue and language of her characters. These dialogues are what give life to her characters. These characters, though fictitious, are raw and their stories provide insight into their lives and struggles.
Gorilla, My Love is a collection of 15 short stories that remain true to Bambara’s style. I found I enjoyed the stories, when I took my time to read them and understand the tone and the message beautifully contained within Bambara’s colorful prose. At the first read, these stories can be challenging. They require the reader give them their due time and take in the scene, the characters and the symbolisms employed. Though this book is only 192 pages, which technically, is a decent quick read, I do not recommend it in the midst of a read-a-thon or aggressive end of year book challenge. I repeat, give this book time to really enjoy it.
There are several good stories in this collection. Some of my favorites were the title story, Gorilla, My Love, Hammerman, and Basement.
In Gorilla, My Love, the story is told from the point of view of the main character, Hazel, a sassy, tough, young kid, who holds people accountable for what they say. This is a significant theme for this story as things take a twist in the end, when she discovers that her uncle is preparing to marry. Her character is credible as young children are innocent and trusting of adults. They typically will believe what an adult tells them and take it as bond. This was a great read and I connected with Hazel at the end of the story.
In Hammerman, issues such as mental illness and race are covered. The point of view is the main character, a young girl who is aware of her surroundings. She finds herself in a little dilemma after she fights Manny (also known as the Hammerman). He is unable to shake this physical altercation and so chooses to wait for our main character on the roof of her house so that he will have the opportunity to fight her again. However, he is not just waiting one day, he waits for several days. The reader learns that Manny possibly has a mental illness, though many of the people in his neighborhood just refer to him as “crazy”. The main character later bears witness to a confrontation between Manny and some police officers who try to remove him from a basketball court when he is caught there playing after hours. It is very likely the officers do not understand that Manny has a mental illness and that Manny does not understand them either. Things become quite chaotic as the main character tries to make sense of what is going on and tries to step in to defend Manny. I will not say anymore…but get the book and tell me what you think.
Sexuality is the theme covered in Basement. We are introduced to this theme when Patsy, one of the characters in the story, reveals to her mother, the building engineer exposed himself to her and other kids while they were in the basement playing. This particular story is not extremely graphic, but there is a brief and basic description of what takes place in certain scenes. This particular story was interesting for me to read, as the dialogue was a child’s interpretation of the sexual behavior observed. This story is not traumatizing and should not discourage anyone from reading it—READ IT and appreciate the literary skills of Bambara.
Overall, I gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars. What can I say? I recommend it. There are so many reviews out there on it, many of them from literary professors and scholars. However, I would encourage you to read it and form your own opinion.
November 17, 2009
Gorilla, My Love is the first book of short stories I've read from Feminista's Top 100 Works by Women Authors. I'm not so sure about their mixing short stories, novellas, autobiography, and novels. Why not add some poetry and personal essays in there too? Or, how about making a top 100 list by genre so we're not comparing apples to gorillas?
Reading this book from cover to cover was challenging.If I'd just kept the book in the car for months and read a story anytime I was sitting in a waiting room, I might have gotten more out of it, but reading this before bed or when I had long stretches required too large a jump from story to story. Each narrator and dialect required the work of going into a world where I didn't know the lingo and hadn't ever visited personally so I had to gather a lot from context and I felt like I was missing more of it than I was getting. That being said, the strongest stories from Gorilla, My Love are some of the best I've ever read. Whether entering the world of a mother of adult children who disapprove of her sexual appetite, a child fighting to get her money back from the theater manager because the movie's title was misleading, or the teenager imagining being able to look back on her "betrayed youth," the characters are so interesting I wanted to live with them longer and hear more of their stories. The book jacket sports multiple blurbs about the portraits of black life Bambara creates, and she does but the stories are so short, they can only be portraits. I wanted more. Additionally, the book really suffers a lull in the middle, with the most compelling vignettes at both ends.
Reading this book from cover to cover was challenging.If I'd just kept the book in the car for months and read a story anytime I was sitting in a waiting room, I might have gotten more out of it, but reading this before bed or when I had long stretches required too large a jump from story to story. Each narrator and dialect required the work of going into a world where I didn't know the lingo and hadn't ever visited personally so I had to gather a lot from context and I felt like I was missing more of it than I was getting. That being said, the strongest stories from Gorilla, My Love are some of the best I've ever read. Whether entering the world of a mother of adult children who disapprove of her sexual appetite, a child fighting to get her money back from the theater manager because the movie's title was misleading, or the teenager imagining being able to look back on her "betrayed youth," the characters are so interesting I wanted to live with them longer and hear more of their stories. The book jacket sports multiple blurbs about the portraits of black life Bambara creates, and she does but the stories are so short, they can only be portraits. I wanted more. Additionally, the book really suffers a lull in the middle, with the most compelling vignettes at both ends.
January 9, 2016
Wonderful short stories with very vivid character descriptions. Although the stories were short they were power packed and reflective on life issues as seen from a child's view.
December 12, 2019
Quindici racconti, che hanno come protagoniste le donne o i bambini, in cui Toni Cade Bambara racconta dà voce alle donne afroamericane e lo fa con ironia e al tempo stesso con tenerezza.
Tenerezza è il sentimento provato alla fine del racconto "Gorilla, amore mio". Ne ho provata così tanta che mi veniva voglia di abbracciare e di stringere forte a me questi due bambini: "Piango e mi rannicchio sul sedile, e non m'importa più di niente. E nonno dice di piantarla e pigia l'acceleratore. E io mi confondo e non sono dove guardare sulla cartina perché con le lacrime non ci vedo. Piange anche il piccolo Jason. Perché lui è mio fratello e capisce che dobbiamo stare uniti sennò è la fine, con tutti questi adulti che cambiano idea come banderuole e ti mandano al manicomio. E nemmeno ti chiedono scusa."
Tenerezza ancora è il sentimento provato ne "La corsa di Raymond": perché se c'è un modo per ridurre la disabilità di qualcuno, è proprio quello di fare leva sulle sue potenzialità. Beh, in realtà questo discorso vale per tutti.
Le prime cinque storie le ho trovate dei piccoli capolavori.
Tenerezza è il sentimento provato alla fine del racconto "Gorilla, amore mio". Ne ho provata così tanta che mi veniva voglia di abbracciare e di stringere forte a me questi due bambini: "Piango e mi rannicchio sul sedile, e non m'importa più di niente. E nonno dice di piantarla e pigia l'acceleratore. E io mi confondo e non sono dove guardare sulla cartina perché con le lacrime non ci vedo. Piange anche il piccolo Jason. Perché lui è mio fratello e capisce che dobbiamo stare uniti sennò è la fine, con tutti questi adulti che cambiano idea come banderuole e ti mandano al manicomio. E nemmeno ti chiedono scusa."
Tenerezza ancora è il sentimento provato ne "La corsa di Raymond": perché se c'è un modo per ridurre la disabilità di qualcuno, è proprio quello di fare leva sulle sue potenzialità. Beh, in realtà questo discorso vale per tutti.
Le prime cinque storie le ho trovate dei piccoli capolavori.
December 7, 2016
I thought that the short stories in this collection were funny and real and applicable to the time they were written in but also 2016. That said, there were some stories in the collection that I feel I just couldn't wrap my head. The first few stories in the book I found to be the funniest, but I could see that there were recurring themes/events that gave the book a feel of connectedness, whether it was the card/coffee reading magic to the kissing of toads and getting warts.
December 18, 2019
Really inventive and compelling stories. It's kind of hard to get my head around how well-done these stories are. Transporting!
August 3, 2018
The stories in this collection have a lot in common and a lot not in common. They're mostly about strong-voiced african american women, they're unapologetically black and unapologetically feminist, many are about children or from the perspective of children, many contain similar characters with similar names, and they are filled with really colorful dialogue.
But where they differ is more interesting. Even within their variety, each story stands on its own stylistically. It seems Bambara doesn't like repeating herself in terms of style or characterization, and this makes for a difficult reading experience. I don't mean that as a bad thing, I mean, it's difficult but rewarding. Often the plot unfolds in ways where, if told traditionally, it would not amount to much. But the way she unravels them, starting in media res (often within a tangent that you only later realize how it links up to the main point of the story), withholding information to just the right time, creating spaces where you the reader have to follow along the thought-lines of the narrator's voice which means you have to follow her into memories, flashbacks, hopes, dreams and imaginations, and so most of the story does not happen in the "real life" of the story.
Maybe the real life of the story is simply that she went to a movie and felt ripped off and wanted to get her money back. But there is so much more behind that "action". Always in only a few pages she is able to capture a moment or a feeling, but what's more impressive is that while capturing that moment she's able to imply a whole world. These stories, under a less skilled writer could easily have been twice their length and still not feel bloated, but Bambara is a master at concision and implication.
Let's take the story Survivor for example. This story is so creatively told, so narratively unconventional that it's confusing on first read, but rewards upon subsequent reads. In fact I think it was written to be enjoyed on those subsequent reads. I read it several times and still don't understand it completely. Layers of flashback without any clue as to what is present what is past, what is imagined, what is inside of a film (the main character is an actress) and what is reality, yet at the end, you feel like the character herself... in a haze, in labor, having survived what? childbirth, a car crash, a horrible relationship. Not an ounce of sentimentality or conclusion to satisfy the reader, but a lot to think about, a lot of her reality is implied in the small details, in the background noise.
But where they differ is more interesting. Even within their variety, each story stands on its own stylistically. It seems Bambara doesn't like repeating herself in terms of style or characterization, and this makes for a difficult reading experience. I don't mean that as a bad thing, I mean, it's difficult but rewarding. Often the plot unfolds in ways where, if told traditionally, it would not amount to much. But the way she unravels them, starting in media res (often within a tangent that you only later realize how it links up to the main point of the story), withholding information to just the right time, creating spaces where you the reader have to follow along the thought-lines of the narrator's voice which means you have to follow her into memories, flashbacks, hopes, dreams and imaginations, and so most of the story does not happen in the "real life" of the story.
Maybe the real life of the story is simply that she went to a movie and felt ripped off and wanted to get her money back. But there is so much more behind that "action". Always in only a few pages she is able to capture a moment or a feeling, but what's more impressive is that while capturing that moment she's able to imply a whole world. These stories, under a less skilled writer could easily have been twice their length and still not feel bloated, but Bambara is a master at concision and implication.
Let's take the story Survivor for example. This story is so creatively told, so narratively unconventional that it's confusing on first read, but rewards upon subsequent reads. In fact I think it was written to be enjoyed on those subsequent reads. I read it several times and still don't understand it completely. Layers of flashback without any clue as to what is present what is past, what is imagined, what is inside of a film (the main character is an actress) and what is reality, yet at the end, you feel like the character herself... in a haze, in labor, having survived what? childbirth, a car crash, a horrible relationship. Not an ounce of sentimentality or conclusion to satisfy the reader, but a lot to think about, a lot of her reality is implied in the small details, in the background noise.
February 18, 2017
I didn't have time to read these stories as carefully as I would have liked (had to get the book back to the library) and hope to pick the book up again at some point.
The first story "My Man Bovanne" is exquisite. I love the pathos and humor, the dynamics between a mother, Miss Hazel, and her children, and her frustration with a kind of self-righteousness that makes her kids feel they have the right to control her way of moving in the world. They see her behavior as overly sexual and miss the more important nuanced way that she undermines a social structure that enables the younger generation to look away from the fighting the older generation has done. The young adults want to be 'radical' by questioning the dignity of those who came before them. They fail to appreciate the vibrance of their mother's (and previous) generation(s) and instead feel shame about their suffering and their resilience.
I also liked the much-anthologized title story. It has a classic feel to it and has Bambara's bitter-sweet humor. Overall I found the book to be a bit uneven (which is true of most books of short fiction I read). But the stories mostly have vivid first-person narrators struggling with some part of growing up or growing old.
The first story "My Man Bovanne" is exquisite. I love the pathos and humor, the dynamics between a mother, Miss Hazel, and her children, and her frustration with a kind of self-righteousness that makes her kids feel they have the right to control her way of moving in the world. They see her behavior as overly sexual and miss the more important nuanced way that she undermines a social structure that enables the younger generation to look away from the fighting the older generation has done. The young adults want to be 'radical' by questioning the dignity of those who came before them. They fail to appreciate the vibrance of their mother's (and previous) generation(s) and instead feel shame about their suffering and their resilience.
I also liked the much-anthologized title story. It has a classic feel to it and has Bambara's bitter-sweet humor. Overall I found the book to be a bit uneven (which is true of most books of short fiction I read). But the stories mostly have vivid first-person narrators struggling with some part of growing up or growing old.
January 31, 2011
This is a part of my 2010 Summer Short Story Collection Challenge:
The fifteen taut stories are fascinating glimpses into the lives of Black women and girls, some in the streets in New York, some in the Southern small town. Bambara is a master of first person point of view and dialect--and her experiments using Black English feel effortless. This collection is dripping with voice.
The showpiece here is "The Lesson," which is actually the first thing I ever taught, when I was a student teacher in Spring 1999. But Gorilla, My Love as a whole is consistently intriguing--both for its content and linguistic efforts. I particularly enjoyed the stories most like "The Lesson," those written through the perspective of spunky, bold, but unknowing young girls. "Basement," "The Hammer Man," "Street Town," "Raymond's Run" and "Maggie of the Green Bottles" were some of the most memorable.
Overall, Gorilla, My Love celebrates growing up and women's experience and finding one's voice. Oh, and the opening reflection "A Sort of Preface" where Bambara explains why she doesn't write autobiographical fiction is hilarious and really worth reading.
The fifteen taut stories are fascinating glimpses into the lives of Black women and girls, some in the streets in New York, some in the Southern small town. Bambara is a master of first person point of view and dialect--and her experiments using Black English feel effortless. This collection is dripping with voice.
The showpiece here is "The Lesson," which is actually the first thing I ever taught, when I was a student teacher in Spring 1999. But Gorilla, My Love as a whole is consistently intriguing--both for its content and linguistic efforts. I particularly enjoyed the stories most like "The Lesson," those written through the perspective of spunky, bold, but unknowing young girls. "Basement," "The Hammer Man," "Street Town," "Raymond's Run" and "Maggie of the Green Bottles" were some of the most memorable.
Overall, Gorilla, My Love celebrates growing up and women's experience and finding one's voice. Oh, and the opening reflection "A Sort of Preface" where Bambara explains why she doesn't write autobiographical fiction is hilarious and really worth reading.
June 2, 2017
I read this book years ago. Not only is it one of my favorite reads, it changed my own approach to writing. I love Bambara's willingness to paint Black women, young & old alike, as defiant and victorious rather than sad, defeated victims.
March 14, 2012
This was really hard to get through as it was so inconsistent (not an uncommon problem in short-story collections) and some pieces read more like character studies than actual stories. A decent storywriter but not great, in my opinion.
August 30, 2022
4.5 stars. Save the two stories I didn’t completely follow, I absolutely loved this collection. My personal favorites were Happy Birthday, The Lesson, and The Johnson Girls, but I’m sure I’d list another three, tomorrow.
Also, one day I’m going to frame the preface because… because!
Also, one day I’m going to frame the preface because… because!
June 23, 2020
I loved this book of short stories. I love how she portrays the pain, joy and dreams of black girls and black women
July 6, 2020
A surprisingly allusive, nearly esoteric, short story collection. Bambara employs an unorthodox, non-chronological narrative structure in these stories that I’d suggest be read over and over to grasp the full nuance behind the connections narrated. (I know I’ll be revisiting.)
I doubt any of the stories stand solitary to each other which, indeed, offers a special touch to the reading!
I doubt any of the stories stand solitary to each other which, indeed, offers a special touch to the reading!
September 6, 2022
Io, con i racconti, non ci vado particolarmente d'accordo.
Alcuni, i primi soprattutto, sono molto molto belli, altri mi hanno lasciata più tiepida.
Mi resta però la curiosità di approfondire questa autrice, cosa non molto semplice del resto, dal momento che non c'è altro di suo che sia stato tradotto in italiano. Attendo fiduciosa.
3,5
Alcuni, i primi soprattutto, sono molto molto belli, altri mi hanno lasciata più tiepida.
Mi resta però la curiosità di approfondire questa autrice, cosa non molto semplice del resto, dal momento che non c'è altro di suo che sia stato tradotto in italiano. Attendo fiduciosa.
3,5
March 4, 2022
“Days other than here and now, I told myself, will be dry and sane and sticky with the rotten apricots oozing slowly in the sweet time of my betrayed youth.”
September 26, 2018
The beauty is in the simplicity in Gorilla, My Love, and in each story we are presented with more questions than answers in a series of stories taking place in New York and rural North Carolina. I look at stories like Bambara's in wonder because so much can be conveyed in the most seemingly mundane occurrences. Entire books' worth of gender/class/race politics crammed into short conversations between family members or exchanges between kids and their teacher in a way that necessitates we reexamine more of the minutiae within our own lives.
Gorilla, My Love does many things well, but something it achieves that few other books attempt at all is to give a voice to Black children, specifically Black girls. I don't even so much mean that many of the stories are narrated from the vantage point of a young Black girl, but that that girl in almost every instance is given full agency and a rounded-out character with identifiable wants, needs, and aspirations. Interactions that are dismissed as fodder between adults and children, or viewed as legitimate but less serious than those between two adults, are magnified and given its deserving weight. For many reasons, I appreciated this emphasis because of how much, lately, I have considered ways in which we institutionally and interpersonally mistreat and disenfranchise young people. Above all, perhaps what's most impressive about Bambara's short story collection is how immediately relevant it is, nearly sixty years after its original publication.
Gorilla, My Love does many things well, but something it achieves that few other books attempt at all is to give a voice to Black children, specifically Black girls. I don't even so much mean that many of the stories are narrated from the vantage point of a young Black girl, but that that girl in almost every instance is given full agency and a rounded-out character with identifiable wants, needs, and aspirations. Interactions that are dismissed as fodder between adults and children, or viewed as legitimate but less serious than those between two adults, are magnified and given its deserving weight. For many reasons, I appreciated this emphasis because of how much, lately, I have considered ways in which we institutionally and interpersonally mistreat and disenfranchise young people. Above all, perhaps what's most impressive about Bambara's short story collection is how immediately relevant it is, nearly sixty years after its original publication.
April 6, 2014
I'd taught a few of the most frequently anthologized stories over the years in my Intro to Fiction courses over the years, but never read Cade Bambara's entire collection. I'm glad I finally did. The stories I already knew well--the title story, "The Lesson" and especially "Raymond's Run"--are beautiful, perfect stories, all from the first person pov of tween/teen working-class black girls, coming of age. Not all of the stories here are like that--some drop the first person and try to be experimental and self-consciously artsy (as I see it, like the longest here, "The Survivor," while others deal with adult narrators, such as "My Man Bovanne." But all of the ones that go with girl narrators, growing up--the lonesome "Happy Birthday," the disturbing "The Basement," and most of all the concluding "The Johnson Girls," in which the narrator is welcomed into not just the hard realities of adult relationships but also to the nurturing power of grown-ass sisterhood--are nearly as good as the stories I already loved.
January 14, 2023
“Monsters, you know more than anybody else, need your pity cause they need beauty and love so bad”
Fifteen uplifting and humorous stories, set in New York and North Carolina, this is classic African American literature at its finest. One of my favorite short stories of all time, Raymond’s Run, is included in this collection- and is probably Ms Bambara’s most read piece of literature, beloved by secondary and college teachers alike for its spunky, brash and unforgettable protagonist, Squeaky. In these difficult times, this collection is as poignant and bittersweet compared to Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek, and the works of Alice Walker and Junot Diaz.
Fifteen uplifting and humorous stories, set in New York and North Carolina, this is classic African American literature at its finest. One of my favorite short stories of all time, Raymond’s Run, is included in this collection- and is probably Ms Bambara’s most read piece of literature, beloved by secondary and college teachers alike for its spunky, brash and unforgettable protagonist, Squeaky. In these difficult times, this collection is as poignant and bittersweet compared to Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek, and the works of Alice Walker and Junot Diaz.
March 13, 2014
Title of this book could also be "How To Be a Complete and Total Badass". There is tons of spirit and style, many of the stories read well. Underneath the breezy delivery are serious topics of race, class and gender. A couple of the later stories have a different style which is less coherent and approachable. I didn't enjoy those as much as the more direct ones. Overall pretty good.
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