Corregidora

This was not the book for me. Important, yes, in brutally revealing the lives of black enslaved women and their subsequent generations of daughters. But detailing domestic abuse, sexual assault, violent relationships, and graphic sex and language just was too much for me to stomach.

I feel some guilt when I react this way to a book. Who am I to not even be able to read about these topics when so many women lived it? But there it is. I skimmed sections and made it to the end. Barely.

Original publication date: 1975
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 176 pages
Rating: I can't rate this because I don't know wether to prioritize my reaction or the writing (which was good) or the importance of the show more topic
Format/where I acquired the book: ER book
Why I read this: off the shelf, Virago American author monthly challenge show less

Corregidora was originally published in 1975, but the issues that Gayl Jones presents are timeless. The story follows a blues singer, Ursa, who struggles with her maternal history but also with her relationships in the present. Her last name, Corregidora, is her family’s legacy, as her mother and grandmother were both fathered by a man by this name who was a Portuguese slave master. Issues of abuse (domestic and otherwise), slavery and ownership, sexuality, and womanhood all cycle throughout the past and the present as the reader experiences Ursa’s struggle to work through both her mother’s and grandmother’s experiences but also her own current reality. This was not an “easy read” but it is an honest and important one.

[Corregidora] by Gayl Jones.

Oof. Not a light-hearted piece of fluff, this book. Through the story of Ursa, Gayle Jones gives us a meditation on the lasting trauma and physical and mental violence of slavery. Ursa’s relationships with men are colored by the experience of her maternal great-grandmother and grandmother who were slaves and mistresses of the Portuguese landowner, Corregidora. Their stories are passed down from mother to daughter, and when Ursa suffers a miscarriage and is no longer able to have children, her sense of failure further impacts her relationships and sense of herself. Jones’ writing is sharp even while the narrative is somewhat convoluted and choppy. There is a lot of brutality and a lot of harsh language and show more imagery, so reader be warned. Ultimately, I am glad I read it, but I don’t think it’s one I will revisit.

3.5 stars

Received through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. show less

Ursa is a blues singer in Kentucky. Being the descendant of both slave and slave-master, her upbringing was such that bearing witness and keeping memory–that of the exploitation, pain, and the existence of slavery itself, is instilled in her since childhood, and she's charged with passing down this information to the next generation through her children and their children afterwards, so that what happened isn't lost. The brutal abuse of Ursa's husband, Mutt, changes the order of this when injuries she suffers in his hands means she wouldn't be able to bear children anymore. Ursa through her art of storytelling and singing blends what she calls private memory (that which is more individual) and collective memory (that which involves a show more larger group of people).

Corregidora is the Portuguese master who sexually abused and exploited the bodies of his slaves personally and commercially. After slavery ends, the enslavers, in typical criminal fashion, burn the evidence of the brutal enterprise they were engaged and profited in. Ursa’s great-grandmother begins the tradition of oral record-keeping:

"And then that’s when the officials burned all the papers cause they wanted to
play like what had happened before never did happen. But I know it happened, I
bear witness that it happened."

Truthfully, in its theme, this book struck too close to home for me. While none of my ancestors were victims of the TransAtlantic slave trade, the whole enterprise of those in power unleashing brutality as means to whatever ends and covering it up, was too familiar. Burundi, as well as Rwanda and Congo (D.R.) were Belgian colonies. The records of the horrifying suffering in that period (the villages pillaged, the massacres, the fields razed and the starvation and deaths caused, those maimed, the sexual abuse and rape suffered) cannot be accessed by the average Burundian, Congolese or Rwandan. Of course this isn’t to mention the political assassinations carried out, the divide and rule policies, and all that has caused more suffering. Not that Belgium burned all these records, but they took all records (and artifacts as well of course) with them after independence and if I wanted to learn of certain events I would need to book an appointment with the archives department in Brussels to access the records. There were talks of digitizing the records, but I didn’t see any change last I checked. Which of course means the way information from this period trickles for many is through the memories of those who endured the suffering and the few (often white) academics who’re able to access these records. They didn’t do this only with their own records, but were kind enough to cover up the massacring, killing, and raping their German predecessors did before them, and before they lost the first world war and their colonies, some of which Belgium took. The Belgians (with the help of the Catholic church) were so thorough in their cleaning up that they abducted tens of thousands of biracial children fathered by Belgian colonizers and settlers in Burundi, Congo and Rwanda, and only apologized for it three years ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/03/belgium-apologise-kidnapping-mixed...

The transience of memory makes it a fragile vessel for record. This is a fact the powerful know and depend on. Ursa, tasked with keeping memory passed down, is faced with a crisis when it becomes clear that the memory of the suffering could be lost forever.

It’s unbelievable that this book was written while Gayl Jones was twenty five. The incredible depth and breadth this book bears and its ideas on memory, pain, loneliness, unfulfilled desire and desolation as well as the aftermath of something so big and painful as slavery conceived and told in such language at such a young age is just astounding. show less

Corregidora is a raw, powerful story about the endurance of memory. Ursa Corregidora, the title character is descended from slave women who were raped by their slave owner, who fathered both her grandmother and mother. They tell Ursa the story over and over again, so that it will never be forgotten: "My great-grandmama told my grandmama the part she lived through that my grandmama didn't live through and my grandmama told my mama what they both lived through and my mama told me what they all lived through and we were suppose to pass it down like that from generation to generation so we'd never forget."

Ursa doesn't forget, and her relationships with men are scarred by the memories. Even her singing is informed by the memories and she show more notes that when she performs she is often considered a commodity. The story of her life is the story of her trying to come to terms with this past. Her relationship with Mutt, her husband, reminds me of Tea Cake and Janie's relationship in Their Eyes Were Watching God.

This novel, with its uncensored memories and raw language, is powerful. Ursa's story will stay with me for a long time. show less

Corregidora opens with Ursa, a jazz singer, reeling from her partner Mutt’s jealousy-fueled physical abuse. Tadpole, the jazz club owner, bans Mutt from the club and takes Ursa in after she is discharged from the hospital. Through the novel’s non-linear narrative, the reader comes to understand that Ursa is now no longer able to bear children. This weighs on her heavily, and not just for all the obvious reasons. Ursa, her mother, and her grandmother were all born from the sexual predations of an abusive white man named Corregidora. From early childhood Ursa was told she must “produce generations” who would testify about the wrongs done in the past, so their story is never forgotten. Ursa is devastated at not being able to carry show more out this promise. She is also severely traumatized by Mutt’s abuse, and seeks to put distance between them even as she continues to dwell on their relationship.

This book explores difficult themes of intergenerational trauma, related to relationships and sexuality. Its nonlinear style includes traditional narrative and internal monologue from Ursa as well as her female ancestors. While it often took me a while to figure out who was “speaking,” each of these monologues further developed Ursa’s history and character.

I read Corregidora for a class, and would not have discovered it otherwise. It was an intense and difficult read but ultimately worthwhile. show less

The brutality of the intergenerational trauma is all the more powerful because of the first person narration. Set primarily in the late 40's the novel describes the life of Ursa, a blues singer first married to Mutt. As the story opens, he pushes her down stairs, causing a miscarriage and then hysterectomy. Ursa has been indoctrinated by her grandmother and mother to believe that her purpose is to create a new generation in spite of the abuse by Corregidora, the slave owner who sired her great grandmother, her grandmother, and then her mother, at the same time he sold their sex to other white men. Ursa's matrilineal traumas plague her relationships with both men and women.