Getting Mother's Body

A Novel

By: Suzan-Lori Parks

Narrated by: Suzan-Lori Parks

Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Billy Beede, the teenage daughter of the fast-running, no-account, and six-years-dead Willa Mae, comes home one day to find a fateful letter waiting for her: Willa Mae's burial spot in LaJunta, Arizona, is about to be plowed up to make way for a supermarket.

As Willa Mae's only daughter, Billy is heiress to her mother's substantial but unconfirmed fortune - a cache of jewels that Willa Mae's lover, Dill Smiles, is said to have buried with her. Dirt poor, living in a trailer with her Aunt June and Uncle Roosevelt behind a gas station in a tumbleweedy Texas town, and pregnant with an illegitimate child, Billy knows that treasure could mean salvation. So she steals Dill's pickup truck and, with her aunt and uncle in tow, heads for Arizona with Dill in hot pursuit. While everyone agrees it's only polite to speak of getting mother's body and moving her to a proper resting place, it's well understood that digging up Willa Mae's diamonds and pearls will make the whole trip a lot more worthwhile.

The enormously accomplished fiction debut from Suzan-Lori Parks, the 2002 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Getting Mother's Body takes its place in the company of the classic works of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker. But when it comes to an ingenious, uproarious knack for depicting the trifling, hard-luck, down-and-out souls who need a little singing and laughing and lying and praying to get through the day, Suzan-Lori Parks shares the stage with no one.

©2003 Suzan-Lori Parks (P)2003 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Getting Mother's Body is a straightforward, light-footed novel with none of the bleak, doomy undertones of Faulkner's; it's just about as funny and not nearly as scary." (The New York Times)
"Though I've read countless novels, I had never read one like this." (The Washington Post)

A good read that you’ll read again!

I read this book many years ago and wanted to listen to it. I was not disappointed! The book is told through a series of first hand accounts of the stories and they never overlap. The descriptions are so vivid that I could see the story unfolding with her words if my were closed. Suzan-Lori Parks does an awesome job bringing her characters to life. My least favorite part of this book was the ending... I just didn’t want it to end! I will listen to this over and over again.

Moves you to another world

This book was amazing. It is a story that traps, seduces, the reader into a past, a memory, a once upon a time. It's like a story being told at a backyard barbecue. I loved the way the story weaves a world around you like nostalgia. The characters are unapologetic in the flawed existence - which is what makes them familiar and wonderful.

Slow, boring, songs are OK

I should have stopped after the second CD did not engage me... I listened to the whole thing and it was just like a bad movie, slow, going nowhere.

Maybe if you are a blues fan, you find the pain & boredom interesting, obviously some people seemed to have enjoyed it? but if you are not into this genre WATCH OUT! Slow agony waits for you.

The songs where a bit interesting, but they do not last long.

Disappointing , Not What I Expected

I must have a different sense of humor than the New York Times reviewers because I found this book depressing and not remotely amusing. The story drags as the narration bounces from one character to the next; there are times when it isn't clear who is narrating. There is also singing, which was unexpected. I thought the songs should move the story forward but instead I found myself wishing I could fast forward. The person reading and singing is the author, Suzan-Lori Parks. She's not a great singer and her southern accent is inconsistent. In my two years with Audible, the books I've found the most enjoyable are read by a person with an engaging voice and the ability to do accents. I gave the book two stars rather than one because there were a couple interesting bits, but all told, it was a disappointment.

Waste of Time

If you have nothing planned to do and want to waste several hours you might listen but otherwise this is a total disappointment. Not worth the money or loss of time listening.

I wish the narration was better

Throughout the entire book, I was painfully aware that it was being narrated by the author. It's not that Suzan-Lori Parks was bad, more that she wasn't good. As the story was so interesting, I felt it was unfortunate that the production didn't do it justice.

unrelentingly grim

Great concept, but so little humor, hope or redemption that it makes a tough listen.