Half a Heart

As the mother of several grown children, I've often wondered who my children would have been without my influence...who I would have been without them at the center of my life. This wonderful story explores those "What if" questions in an engrossing and authentic way. By creating a mother and daughter who are desperate to compensate for a lifetime of seperation, this book pays beautiful tribute to the amazing power of parenthood. As is always true of Ms. Brown's books, the writing is lush and lovely.

I gulped down this book in two days. The novel deals with important issues and the charactes are full-bodied, three-dimensional, complex.

Hard to believe I read the same book these reviewers are trashing. It's far more complex and sympathetic on all sides, not sentimental but challenging (maybe that's the problem)and unwilling to accept easy stereotypes. Ronnee is no "tragic mulatto" -- she may be confused but she's much too dignified for that. And her father is no big black brute. So what's going on here? Protecting the turf,to keep white writers from poaching on territory that isn't "theirs"? I guess readers will have to decide for themselves but they should read "Half a Heart" and make up their own minds.

This is a beautiful novel that gives us a complex look at the way families can divide over race. Brown never allows us to take sides, as she keeps showing us how the terms of the racial debate are flawed from the start. A brave work by a gifted storyteller.

Rosellen Brown has created very real and all-too human characters in this vivid book. Miriam and Ronnee's struggles to accept themselves, to accept one another, and to accept the past are powerful and painful. The complex issues of race, motherhood (and daughterhood), class, and honesty are addressed beautifully, with powerful prose and visceral descriptions. Brown enters the heads of both characters with equal strength and emotional intuition. Highly recommended!