Michele Andrea Bowen

I checked out the audio version of this novel at my local library. It was very frustrating to follow and preachy with a lot of bible quotes, clichés, slang and overly detailed clothes descriptions, peppered with “Negros” and “White Boy”. Bowen took issues like community development and weaved in a story about a church family working to save their community as well as dating as Christians and discussing church life and small town politics, but fell flat on attention grabbing show more dialogue.

Also, too many irrelevant characters were introduced who muddled the plot and did nothing to advance or enhance the story. Bowen gave a lot of lists, such as hip/hop and rap artists, stores (Kmart, Wal-Mart & Target) and more.

Then there are some other plot devices that just seem unbelievable, such as the police officer who responds when Theresa accidentally sets off her home alarm system. The officer, seeing her upset, gives her unsolicited religious advice that's pretty personal and intrusive. It was jarring and interrupted the forward motion of the book.

On the bright side, there are a few fun characters and several laugh-out-loud funny scenes. Such as Doll Face who by description is anything but with false putty teeth, holy oil slinging Queen Esther, yellow cleaning gloved wearing Miss Shirley, Chablis (table wine), blind Mr. Lacey and his crippled brother.

I’m glad it cost me nothing to listen to the book. If I had spent my money to include in my personal library, I would have been very disappointed. show less

This review was initially published on my blog: http://jewelknits.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-church-folk-by-michele-andrea.html

This book is the follow up to Ms. Bowen's "Church Folk" (which I have not read).

I kept going back and forth from this book .. not because it didn't have an interesting story (it IS interesting and imaginative), but because I had a struggle with reading the vernacular that much of the dialogue is written in. We're talking about highly-educated people in many cases, and show more I, for one, don't know any educated black folk that talk like this, but that could be just me. I also struggled a bit with the fact that even the "good" preachers were noticing things like double D's sitting in the next pew over.

For me, especially near the beginning of the book, I felt that the personalities and events worked to hard to prop up the stereotype of black church-going folk ... Yes, sometimes people DO fall out ... and there are those bossy biddies who think they run everything, including the preacher, but I'm talking about the corruption inside the highest circles of the church - I just felt that someone who had never experienced the soulful experience of attending a "Holy Spirit" church would be totally put off by it and that reading this would only reinforce any bias they might have against it.

Whew! Having said THAT, I did eventually get over it as the story delved deeper into the inner workings of the church and focused more on it's "good" preachers.

The premise of THIS double-cross is truly original, and the fact that one of our "good" preachers also doubles as an FBI agent only adds to the fun. I love the interactions between the preachers and their wives - they are written well and true-to-life.

There is a huge assortment of characters, but Ms. Bowen introduces them into the story in such a fashion that there's no getting mixed up as to who is who. The paradox of how to get rid of the bad influence in the church while striving to do it in a Christian manner (and sometimes failing) is also at times totally hilarious.

I think that if you read this story with an eye towards the fact that it is simply supposed to be an enjoyable read and not a treatise on black churches in America :), you WILL enjoy it. I know I did.

QUOTES:

It was a magnificent casket. George Wilson had seen many a caske tin his day, but he'd never seen one like this.
First, the casket was painted a sparkling lime-green. Even the metal casket rack was lime-green. Then it was trimmed in gold. But as if that weren't enough, the casket had pictures of Old Daddy painted on both sides. instead of flowers on the top, they had anchored one of Old Daddy's black silk top hats, with a lime-green brocade band around the crown.

It troubled his soul that two of his bishops had died under some very awful circumstances, and were involved with activities that put their eternal souls in jeopardy. Folks needed to quit playing around and toying with Hell like that. It was as if theses people thought that they would die and then discover that somebody had conveniently slipped "Get Out of Hell Free" cards in their caskets. show less

This novel is about a preacher, a young, handsome African Amercan Preacher in the south who is just starting out. He meets a young woman who is a cook in a "jook joint", a place where they serve wonderful spicy food and feature spicy entertainment such as blues singing. Church Folk spans a few years beginning in 1960 (that's the year I was born), Theophilus (handsome young preacher) and Essie (down to earth, fiery-tempered woman) are the two main characters. One of the strongest secondary show more characters is the church itself. Not just the building, but everything there is about church-going: the congregation, the singing, the music, the church politics, the sermons, the "amens" etc. Sprinkled throughout the book, are mentions and references to the Civil Rights Movement, which was going on during the time period this book is set in, although the main focus in the story is the love story and the machinations of some of the greedy preachers and the workings of the more upstanding "church folk".

One of the subplots is the ill-use of funds and the way that some deacons, preachers and bishops seemed to use the church as a way to enrich themselves materialistically rather than enriching their souls and parishioners souls. Church Folk is also a love story and one of the other subplots was the testing of Essie and Theophilis' marriage and love for each other, as well as the growth of their marriage.

While there certainly were no graphic sex scenes, it did feel as if most of the passages involving Theo and Essie were one long session of foreplay. Boy, were those two hot for each other. Another thing that really struck me, was the way that almost all the descriptions of skin color were food related. "Caramel colored", "Dark Chocolate", "light Chocolate", even "Dark Coffee without Cream". Kind of a nice way to compare skin colors. (I would probably be Dulce de Leche, or milky caramel. Yum, Yum. What I enjoyed about this, was the sense of happiness, the non-shame of loving and appreciating their bodies while loving and appreciating the bible and bible teachings.

All in all, I enjoyed this book. I loved the narration style. I loved the dialogue between all the characters, both mean and sweet. I loved reading about the singing and music and dancing in the aisles. If I were brought up with a church like that, I might still be going! Ms Bowen tells a great story here of the triumph of a preacher and his young wife, their flaws and good points and the persevere against the "devils work" in the church. This is one impulse buy that I'm glad I bought. I would definitely recommend this book, especially if you want a good book with a little bit of history for the POC Reading Challenge. Even though most of the events in this novel took place when I was around two or three years old, I still felt a sense of nostalgia when reading about the environment, the music, the cars and clothes. Those early 60's are a very dim memory in my mind. The late 60's and early 70's kind of exploded in my memories, that was a time of extreme change for a lot of people - I'm talking about changes in general - clothes, music, tv shows, etc. show less

While on a random shopping trip this book caught my eye and I decided to give it a try since it is not my "norm." My initial thought was that this book would be a quick read since I'm kind of familiar with the subject manner. To say that this book was tedious to work through is an understatement.

In Holy Ghost Corner, we meet a lot of flamboyant church folk. The story is centered around Teresa Hopson the owner of, Miss Thang's Holy Ghost Corner and Church Woman's Boutique, and her love show more interest Lamont Green a real estate developer. Teresa Hopson has a painful breakup with the skirt chasing Rev. Parvell Sykes leaving her lonely and doubting God about sending her a husband. Lamont Green is so ambitious and business minded that he does not have time for a serious relationship. In the background there is a shady business deal that is developing that involves all the good church folk. Lamont wants to rebuild old black neighborhood of Cashmere Estates but there is stiff opposition that has infiltrated the church. There are also our supporting characters that like the reformed prostitute, Baby Doll, and her man, Mr. Lacy, who is blind. Queen Esther who works for Teresa and happens to be Lamont's aunt is your typical scripture quoting,anointing oil rubbing,church lady. The characters and entire story was so cliche that it was just got to a point where I wanted to throw this book out of a window. The overused church folk stereotypes were exhausting.

I did like the fact that Bowen included so many positive, driven African-American women in her story. Bowen developed successful African-American women entrepreneurs, real estate brokers, and architects as characters. We need to see more of these characters in urban/Christian fiction. The church scene that Bowen included where souls were saved was quite moving. She really conveyed the redemptive work of Christ in a way that it came right off the page and touched your heart. Ultimately, Holy Ghost Corner related how we must trust God in every part of our life. show less