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Best-Selling author Tina McElroy Ansa returns with her signature ability to tell a good, quirky story and tell it with humor, grace and great respect for the power of the particular (The New York Times Book Review) with her new novel TAKING AFTER MUDEAR. TAKING AFTER MUDEAR, Ansa s fifth novel, is the superbly crafted sequel to her awardwinning best-seller, UGLY WAYS. And it is the book fans have been waiting for. Jill McCorkle calls UGLY WAYS, an absolute beauty...that crackles and sings with life. And although, as TAKING AFTER MUDEAR opens, the matriarch of the Lovejoy family has been dead for months, she and Ansa s newest novel again crackle and sing with life. TAKING AFTER MUDEAR continues to follow the story of the three Lovejoy sisters and their mother Mudear, who is deceased but refuses to die, in the small Georgia town of Mulberry. The baby of the family, Annie Ruth, -- pretty, unmarried and hugely pregnant with the first Lovejoy grandchild -- has moved back to Mulberry and is living with her big sister, Betty, a prosperous businesswoman. The middle girl, Emily, who claims she has taken a leave of absence from her job in Atlanta, has moved in, too, to help out and mostly raise the level of sibling tension and friction. But just as the girls begin to think things have settled down for them, Mudear, their recently deceased, self-centered, self-focused mother, starts to make her presence felt again. And with the birth of Annie Ruth s baby girl, the fragile Lovejoy family situation begins to totter even more. With each piece of evidence that something otherworldly and strange is indeed still hanging around the Lovejoy household, the sisters suspect more and more that they are being haunted by their mother. With various baby s daddies showing up and Lovejoys having signature meltdowns, things soon escalate into a full-flown supernatural Mulberry battle for the very life of the newborn child. Indeed, Mudear has come back for that baby girl!! And the sisters have to discover if they are merely the Lovejoy girls ( Them girls still got some ugly ways about em! Mudear is fond of muttering.) or truly the Lovejoy women!!
Back From The GraveReviewed by The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers, 2009-05-12
TAKING AFTER MUDEAR, the long awaited sequel to Ugly Ways , picks
up six months after the Lovejoy sisters buried their mother whom
they referred to as Mudear. Although the funeral is over, Annie
Ruth and Emily remain with Betty as they await the birth of Annie
Ruth's child. Mudear is dead but she's not gone, as each one of her
daughters experience her presence in different ways, but are too
afraid to speak about it. Betty is content having her sisters with
her as she resumes the role of "mother" that she was thrust into at
the age of eight when Mudear "changed" and left her to take on
those responsibilities. Mudear abandoned her duties as wife and
mother, leaving her family to fend for themselves. She slept or
watch television during the day and worked in her garden at night.
She never left the house or communicated with anyone outside of her
immediate family.
Annie Ruth gives birth to her daughter MaeJean who is born with a
birth caul over her face. This pleases Mudear as she was born with
a caul too. Mudear wants MaeJean for herself so that she can raise
her better than she raised her "ungrateful" daughters. Once MaeJean
leaves the hospital and is safely at Betty's house, the strange
occurrences are heightened to the point the girls can't deny it and
they realize Mudear is not through with them yet.
When readers pick up a book by Tina McElroy Ansa, they can be
assured they will receive elements of hurmor, the supernatural and
lots of drama. A prolific storyteller, Ansa picks up right where
Ugly Ways ended and I was pulled back into the story as if several
years had not passed since I read the previous book. As with Ugly
Ways , Ansa included alternating chapters told from Mudear's point
of view. This time she includes baby MaeJean's thoughts. The story
was repetitive at points, but once it got past that, it was Ansa's
engaging style.
Reviewed by Paula Henderson
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers
ds darkhoneyReviewed by relekun, 2009-01-27
After several years this third book that i have never stopped
checking the book shelves for has finally arrived with loads of lol
moments, i do sugguest that you brush up on the second book just to
make this book more enjoyable, not to say that it is nessessary to
do so.....A FUN READ!!
A REAL Southern Flavor!!!Reviewed by Denise Bolds, 2009-01-23
Oh Wee! This book took me right back down south to my grandparents
farm in the summer time... complete with some nabs, a Nehi grape
soda in a glass bottle and a pack of salted peanuts! Oh how that
sand would be white it was so hot - and were wore no shoes!...Ms.
McElroy Ansa made her fans wait a LONG time for this book - but it
was worth the wait!
Mudear, and her three daughters and Poppy in a small southern town.
Mudear is dead and boy does she have a story to tell...The 'change'
where Mudear does not leave her house for 30 years... Her three
daughters, Betty, Emily and Annie with their OWN issues! This is a
GREAT story that is full of surprises and a plot that will leave
you hearing the back pourch door slam on that old
spring...WONDERFUL AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE of the folklore of
the south!
