GIRL IN THE MIRROR:
Three Generations of Black Women in Motion
By Natasha Tarpley
Beacon, 181 pages, $22
Like Michael Jackson’s lyrical contribution “Man in the Mirror,” Natasha Tarpley’s “Girl in the Mirror” sings, both inspiringly and with extraordinary success, about the importance of taking a look at oneself to make a change. In this gritty memoir, Tarpley’s voice is urgent, determined, resonating, convincing, building a harmony of feeling. But what really makes Tarpley, the black woman in the looking glass transfixed by her own image, stand out is her superior ability to reflect, to keep “reaching back” into the story of her people to weave a tapestry of her ancestry while avoiding the trap of narcissism.
The memoir’s innovative structure and form include alternating narrators (among them Tarpley; her mother, Marlene; and her grandmother, Anna) and scenes that are broken up with shifts in time and place. These elements allow us to identify with more than just Tarpley and offer a broader perspective on how the past informs the present. The writing is largely poetry-as-fiction, everything richly metaphoric. Tarpley creates a complex vision through “the power of words, the power of the thoughts that inhabited and invested them with meaning.”
Through Tarpley’s eyes, we get a solid view of a black family in near-perpetual migration and understand the freedom and frustration implicit in it. “(Y)ou’re constantly nego-tiating between where you come from and where you think you’re going,” notes Tarpley’s mother. With so much replanting, Tarpley winds up yearning for a sense of home. “How does a woman relearn her own geography?” the book asks, seemingly wondering if modern society will even let Tarpley take shape as a person. “A history of motion swirled at my feet, as I looked for something to steady myself.”
To her credit, Tarpley focuses on the struggle of the women in her family to find peace and love, rather than on the oppression of those women by their men. She does suggest that because of the men’s individual problems–such as excessive drinking and irresponsibility–she has less respect for them than for the women. But it’s difficult for the reader to completely give up on these men, primarily because the women refuse to abandon them, even while hurt, even while suffering “the emptiness . . . left behind” by them. As Tarpley puts it, “(W)asn’t there always the chance that whatever left would return?” The women demonstrate good will by continuing to see a possi-bility in these otherwise stumbling men. After all, the women endure because they dare to dream; their hope is surely the essence of the book.
Tarpley’s vigorous writing style helps dramatically to emphasize the passion inside these women. Her prose is poetic, confident, pointed, rhythmic and creative. Her memory flows like a fresh-water stream. Only two flaws mar the beauty of this memoir: There are moments when the voices of the narrators, including Anna’s husband, Jack, sound too much like Tarpley’s. Also, the ending conveys a strong main point but tries too hard to teach, nearly bleeding into didacticism. Overall, however, the effort here is genuine and impressive. Tarpley has published two other books, but “Girl in the Mirror” may be her strongest piece of cultural work thus far.
The memoir begins in 1942 in Warrior, Ala., narrated by Anna, who notices herself “slipping” and tries to get herself together. Anna has woken up to confront the emptiness in her house caused by Jack’s leaving for Chicago. The rest of the book spends much of its energy reminding us that the story of so many African-Americans “searching for something” goes deeper than the South, “deeper than cotton fields and human cargoes.” And indeed, the path chosen by Anna and her descendants feels endless, ranging from Alabama to Chicago to Boston to Washington, D.C., and, symbolically, to Africa.
Tarpley employs great skill in composing the book’s three main sections, focusing on “(s)o many leavings” that depict three generations of her family. These sections end up un-ified and perfectly balanced through her creative and powerful crisscrossing of the main characters, Anna, Marlene and herself. They are determined mothers and daughters, “all kinds of women,” braiding themselves into one another through storytelling.
Reminiscent of Richard Wright’s autobiography “Black Boy,” the main characters in “Girl in the Mirror” define themselves in terms of “this hunger, this pain” that they ex-perience. Like Wright, they discover that where they go next is no better, no more liberating, than the South. “But I have learned,” says Marlene, “that staying in one place, you don’t grow, you fade away.”
