The Story Archive

Maud Martha

Gwendolyn Brooks · 1953 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

A dark-skinned girl on the South Side loves dandelions best of all flowers, because they are everywhere and nobody wants them; she grows up, marries a man who wishes she were lighter, and keeps house in a kitchenette with a shared bathroom. Thirty-four short chapters take in a mouse she decides not to kill, a saleswoman's small cruelty, a ball where her husband dances with someone else. Brooks's only novel, largely ignored on publication.

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