selected writing
an excerpt from Light-skinned-ed GirlI call this Day 2. Second day at Grandma's house. Wishing I could go back home. Home to before Chicago. Before there was a boyfriend. To back when there was me and Robbie and Mor and Pop. And everything was okay. Even though there wouldn't be an Ariel, that would be okay too.
Aunt Loretta makes pancakes special for me even though she has no business in the kitchen. Two pancakes and not-enough syrup is what she gives me. Syrup that makes a stain in the pancake middle, gone so fast like the pancake is thirsty. I eat exactly what they give me. That is what I do from now on. Aunt Loretta eats only one pancake. And Grandma none because her teeth don't set right.
There is something dangerous about pancakes because Grandma watches us eat. "How you gonna catch a lizard with your backside loading you down?" Grandma fusses at Aunt Loretta. I am smart and know that when she says lizard she means husband. That is called learning the meaning from the context. Because Grandma says it and she touches Aunt Loretta's face at the same time. That means she's talking about being pretty and being worth something and making it count. There are other things that make me know this. But I can't explain. Aunt Loretta laughs. And so do I. They are happy that I am laughing. It's the first time as the new girl. "I don't need a lizard, mama."
When she says Mama, I think of saying Mor and the way I don't get to say it anymore. I am caught in before and after time. Last-time things and firsts. Last-time things make me sad like the last time I called for Mor and used Danish sounds. I feel my middle fill up with sounds that no one else understands. Then they reach my throat. My fingertips pulse. What if these sounds get stuck in me? What if I am filled with sounds that will never get used up? Mor? Hee-hee-hee-hee. I make those sounds, but the real laugh feels trapped inside too.
copyright Heidi W. Durrow 2005
Light-skinned-ed Girl
a novel manuscript
2008 Winner of Barbara Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change (in bookstores Fall 2009)
Inspired by a real event in which a mother's twisted love led to a horrific result, Light-skinned-ed Girl is the story of the daughter of a Danish immigrant and a black G.I. who is the only survivor of a family tragedy.
With her strict, African-American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a racially-divided Northwest city. There-forced to suppress her overwhelming grief-Rachel struggles to reinvent herself in order to find a place in a mostly black community, where her light-brown skin, blue eyes and beauty bring a constant stream of mixed attention her way.
Interwoven with Rachel's voice are the voices of Jamie (a neighborhood boy who witnesses the accident) and Laronne (a friend of Rachel's mother). Rachel's tragedy comes to define their lives and each sets out on a quest to unravel the mystery of Rachel's last morning on that Chicago rooftop.
As Rachel matures, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to hide the truth of her past from herself. It is only with the help of Jamie and Laronne that Rachel ultimately confronts the truth of the day her family fell from the sky.
Download the audio of Heidi Durrow's featured reading from Light-skinned-ed Girl
at the University of Copenhagen, May 4, 2006.
Heidi Durrow is introduced by
George Hutchinson, author of In Search of Nella Larsen.
