Going Down South: A Novel

Going Down South just blew me away. This is the story of three ordinary yet extraordinary women, Grandma Birdie, her daughter Daisy and her 15 year old granddaughter Olivia Jean who come to live in Cold Water Springs, Alabama. Ms. Glover has created an amazing cast of characters in this beautiful story of forgiveness. The dialogue is so amazingly genuine, offering a glimpse of a culture through conversations that are honest and rarely seen in literature. You can’t get closer to real life than the story Going Down South. As the story spans the lives of the females in one family over generations, they all face life against difficult odds, and harbor deep anger. Through it all they manage to rise to independence and gain a sense of self. show more

Sometime during the 1960's, Olivia Jean becomes pregnant, and her mom and daddy Turk decide to leave New York to take her down south to live with Daisy’s mom Birdie. Thinking she has protected her daughter from the stigma and shame of an out of wedlock pregnancy Daisy’s life is turned upside down when the preacher Percy Walker singles out Olivia Jean at church. He labels her a whore and and admonishes her for her indiscretion as he preaches from the pulpit.

Moving down south proves to be a tension filled proposition as Daisy and Birdie have been at odds for years. They both conceal secrets from the past that have stirred up malevolent memories. As they choose to let anger and the past fester, conversations are strained, ugly, and hateful, until one day Grandma Birdie decides she has had enough.

Grandma Birdie, is a colorful character with witty jailhouse toughness and sage wisdom with a soft heart for family. Daisy, on the other hand has so much anger, time will only tell when tempers will flare. Olivia Jean at fifteen helps to uncover the many secrets with astounding strength for one so young. These feisty heroines are reason alone to read Going Down South. This book touches on all emotions, and you will laugh out loud. Outrageous at times, honestly human and heartfelt. Fabulous fiction with remarkable realism. Don’t miss this Bonnie Glover’s glorious gift. Highly recommended. show less

RATING: 4.5 out of 5

Reading Going Down South, was like going back in time in more ways than one. There was a period of time in my reading life when I became quite immersed in the reading of African American women authors. It seemed like the more I read, the more I wanted to read. One author led to another as I would read interviews or reviews as well as books. Alice Walker and Toni Morrison novels, J. California Cooper novels and short story collections. Tina McElroy Ansa, and of course, Zora Neale Hurston. And then I had finished the collections, and I sat waiting for the next books. Others came along over time as well as women of color from other countries.

So when I read a brief snippet of Bonnie J. Glover’s new book on Shelf show more Awareness, I knew I wanted to read the book.

Going Down South takes you back to a time, the 1960’s, when various parts of this country were very different from others depending on your race. The beginning of this book starts out with a very common occurrence, a young 15 year old girl who becomes pregnant the first time she has sex. However, what follows is not common. Olivia Jean is pregnant and her mother, Daisy is as unhappy as any mother for her only child, however, Daisy’s solution to the problem is to take her back to her hometown, down South, to her mother, Birdie, to hide the problem from the neighborhood. Daisy hasn’t seen her mother, since she left home with her now husband, Turk, 16 years ago, and she was secretly pregnant at the time. Daisy has many unresolved issues with Cold Water Springs, Alabama, but she doesn’t plan on addressing any of them. Her plan is to leave her daughter with her mother, and return to New York with Turk to revive their marriage. Birdie also has many unresolved and secret issues and she has no intention of letting Turk and Daisy leave their daughter with her alone. She knows there is only one way to deal with her daughter, her granddaughter and this new to-arrive member of their unique family.
The story of these three women is powerful, touching, tough, and memorable. The characters quickly become three dimensional people you may have known and come across in your life. Birdie quickly became my favorite character. She made me laugh with her brutal honesty, and tough, tough demeanor, and also brought me to tears with the injustices that she endured and swallowed throughout her life.

There is inspiration and strength to be gained by any young woman that reads this book and feelings to be affirmed by any older woman that has experienced injustice for just being a woman.

Thank you, Bonnie J. Glover, you have given us such a touching, heart-warming portrait of three generations of strong women. show less

Strong characters drive the plot of this delightful novel. Three generations of strong women, each strong in a different way, interact and learn about the corrosive power of secrets. The male characters are perhaps a little stereotypical, but in the service of the plot that is understandable and as it should be. The evocations of time and place are poignant and ring true. A home run from Glover.

Going Down South by Bonnie J. Glover

Going Down South is the story of three generations of women with three generations worth of secrets. Birdie the matriarch of the family is a blue-black woman with a questionable background. Birdie’s daughter Daisy, left Alabama at an early age never to return again, or so she thought. Olivia Jean, Daisy’s daughter changed that with the realization that she is pregnant at 15. Daisy decides that she and her husband, Turk will take Olivia Jean to live with Birdie, whom Olivia Jean has never met. Once they reach Alabama, the plan changes. Secrets are revealed, feelings explained and relationships recovered.

Bonnie J. Glover does an excellent job revealing the personality and history behind each of the show more three women. While men are very much present in this novel, the role they play is secondary at best. Men are discussed only in relation to one of the three lead characters. While Glover does not talk ad nauseum about the time period in which she is writing, she does a good job of conveying general feelings and social mores of the time.

Going Down South will leave you feeling hopeful. If these three Black Alabama women could overcome all that had to and still find some semblance of peace, then what’s stopping the next woman from doing it. Nothing. show less

Going Down South is one of my favorite books this year. I really enjoyed it. This story is about three generations of women in a family-Birdie, Daisy and Olivia Jean-all head strong and stubborn in their own way. It's such a strong story about the connections between mothers and daughters-the good, the bad, and the stuff that ultimately keeps you together. It's set in the South in the 60's and touches on so many issues: color, teen pregnancy, and relationships. The story is told from the point of view of all of the women and it goes back and forth from the past to the present but doesn't leave you feeling confused, just more understanding of the story itself.

I loved Olivia Jean from the start-she's a sweet girl who works hard in show more school. Her relationship with her parents leaves her wanting so much more. For her parents it seems, all that is in their world is each other. Ultimately, Olivia Jean ends up pregnant. I think she was just craving the attention and it ended up being the wrong kind. A quote from Olivia Jean that I really liked and shows really how she was feeling was...and this comes from a time when she's asked if she knows how to be a mother...
'No, but I do know how not to be one. I've seen that firsthand. And I do know what I have to give this baby: patience. I have more than mama does, lots more love, lots more time.'---pg 58
Birdie I loved from when I first met her. She's a strong woman and she has plans of putting her family back together. I think she was very well aware that the problems of the family stemmed down through the generations and they needed to be fixed before it was too late again. One of my favorite parts is when Birdie invites Daisy to mud wrestle with her to get out their frustrations of being mad at each other. It was amusing but really it was a huge part as it was a turning point for the women to begin mending their relationship.

Finally Daisy, she is Birdie's daughter and Olivia Jean's mother. In the beginning of this book I really didn't like her. I also really didn't know her yet. As the story progresses we learn so much more about Daisy and then the reasons for some of her actions become more clear-still not right but at least they make more sense. I loved all the women but I think Daisy came the furthest in terms of healing and going forward-she went from someone I didn't like to someone I genuinely cared for by the end of the novel. For Daisy's, her intense love for Turk was crazy to the point of making her daughter suffer for it. This passage from Daisy really sums up for me her growth...

'She looked out the window past the small dirt yard and to the horizon, watching the moon. And she thought of the journey the Earth made each day, twenty-four endless hours around the sun. And there were the things that happened on Earth, the love, the hatred, the petty jealousies, and then the peace that came after all the drama finished. The peace that God promised, the one that surpassed all the understanding and she knew that she had it. All her secrets were out in the open. That was her peace. She no longer had to hold on to anyone, man or woman.' ---pg 239-240
All of the women in this novel learned something about themselves and about how their lives had been affected by the men that they had been with. These women change throughout the story to finally come together in the end as the family they are meant to be. The author has written this book in a way that draws us into the characters lives so completely. She has made them so real. I missed them so much when I closed the cover on the last page. I wanted more, I wanted to know what would happen to each and every one of them in the future.

This novel would make a great book club pick. There is just so much going on to discuss. You can check out the noontime chats that J.Kaye, me, Shana, Dawn and Yasmin had on each of these stops...

J.Kaye's is here, mine here and here, Shana's here, Dawn's here and Yasmin's here
There is also reading group questions and topics for discussion in the back of the book along with a conversation with Bonnie. You can check out Bonnie's website here. For me, this was a great book and I loved it!

http://peekingbetweenthepages.blogspot.com/2008/11/going-down-south-by-bonnie-j-... show less

For those who enjoy Southern Literature, add Going Down South to your list of must reads. That said, people who tend to avoid this genre might end up enchantment by this story. I was. Bonnie J. Glover, the book’s author, brought together three African American characters: fifteen year old Olivia Jean, her mother, Daisy, and her grandmother, Birdie. Each had their very own story to tell.

It’s the early 1960s when Olivia Jean discovers she is pregnant out of wedlock. Her father and mother pack her up and head down south to Birdie’s. Old wounds are reopened and secrets revealed as these three come to terms with their own obstacles.

My copy to be given away at http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com. Look in the right sidebar under Giveaways.

Reviewed by hoopsielv for TeensReadToo.com

This is a story of women spanning three different generations.

Olivia Jean is the apple of her daddy's eye and is praised by her mama for her good grades. Now, she's pregnant at fifteen.

Her parents, Daisy and Turk, decide it's best for her to go down south and live with her grandma, Birdie, to hide their shame. Birdie isn't going to make it that easy, though. She gives them the ultimatum that Olivia Jean is welcome to stay, but only if Daisy stays, as well.

Daisy hasn't been in contact with her mama for years and can't imagine how this will work. She figured this would be her chance to work on her relationship with Turk. After all, he doesn't come home for days at a time. What's he up to?

These show more three women must learn to live together and be a family. All of them are harboring secrets that need to be revealed if they are ever going to learn to forgive, love, and move on with their lives. They must pull at their inner strengths in order to stand up for what's right and what they believe in.

This endearing story is set in the 1960's and is full of moments that make the reader want to keep on reading. I found myself anxious to reach the ending just to see what happens. I highly recommend GOING DOWN SOUTH! show less