Marked by Fire by Joyce Carol Thomas

From the Publisher

Fire is Warm
Abyssinia Jackson grew up under a vast Oklahoma sky shaded with pecan trees and dotted by endless rows of cotton-pickers cotton. She had the gift of song, a storyteller's talent, the love of her parents, and the affection and pride of her community.

Fire Can Burn
Then a tornado hits and drives Abby's family apart. A deranged neighbor targets her for a campaign of vengeful terror. And a vicious physical assault all but breaks her will.

Marked by Fire
In a triumphant story of faith and fortitude, Abby emerges clearly as a young woman who faces pain and joy with the dignity of her heritage and the determination of spirit.

Joyce Carol Thomas's beautifully written first novel, a 1983 National Book Award winner, remains as poignant and moving today as it was 25 years ago when it was first published.

Children's Literature

It is easy to understand why this book won the National Book Award as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year award. Reading this book, you feel you are a member of the small black community described in its pages. Patience is picking cotton when Abssinia is ready to be born. The pickers place their cotton sacks to keep Patience comfortable during the birthing process. Mother Barker is there and serves as midwife. Abby becomes a joy to her parents, school and neighborhood. She has a beautiful voice and sings at gatherings. She reads to the elderly who can no longer see. One day, a deacon of the Church rapes Abby. All at once, the girl loses her virginity, as well as her ability to walk, talk and sing. Singing is the last skill to return. Abby wanted to become a doctor after graduation, but her dream does not materialize. Abby’s godmother taught her secret, healing recipes that can be made from wild herbs and plants. Abby inherits her godparents’ home and her godmother’s secret recipes. She is kind to her community, especially an unfortunate classmate. At the close of the book, Abby has established herself as a guiding light in her community. Thomas recommends a Reading Group Discussion Guide at the end of the book and provides a list of books for teens to read. Reviewer: Jennie DeGenaro

Product Details

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

Wednesday morning
September 5, 1951

On a hillrise to the left of the cottonfield, a hound dog howled woefully under a blackjack tree, his scruffy tail stuck out stiffly behind him. A string of chee-chee birds perched on the tree branches, the unborn song dying in their throats.

Patience looked up and saw the great whirling wind scoop down at the edge of the cottonfield and yank up an entire row of ripe bolls and sturdy stalks.

Instinctively, her hands reached down and covered her watermelon belly. She felt the urge to run, but she knew she was too heavy. She was trapped here in the cotton patch, crouched on her knees, along with all the other workers. Her eyes followed the movement of the tornado as it ominously skipped and twirled along the boundaries of the field. She watched the tornado snap up the dog and listened, horrified, when his miserable howling ceased. She began to lift herself up on her knees.

"Daughter, don't move," Mother Barker in the next row whispered.

Patience sank back down on her knees and felt the sickness rising in her. There, was no escaping it: the end was near.

In the row on the other side of Patience, Bessie Lightsey nervously sucked her fat thumb and tugged insistently at her mother's skirt. Mesmerized, she could not turn her eyes away from the tornado.

The dark spiral turned and headed toward them.

Patience gasped and clasped her hands together tightly. Mother Barker began to 'pray. In a muted voice, as though afraid the tornado might hear her, she prayed for deliverance.

"Lord, we know you know your business. We know we are but a speck of dust in the comer of your eye. But Heavenly Father,grant me permission to speak to you this morning, Sir. Now, Lord, you made the mountains. You made the forest and the streams." She extended her hands toward Patience. "Merciful Father, you even made the child your faithful handmaiden Patience is carrying. And Lord, you made the tornado, too. You made everything, including these your humble servants. We understand you already predicted our comings and our goings. The hour and minute of our birth. And Lord, if you wag your head on us you know the very second of our death. Father, if you wag your head on this unborn child, how can we watch it experience your wonderful light? Lord, we walk the earth at your command. Sir, if you willed it, in the twinkling of an eye we could be whipped away like a leaf before a treacherous storm. Lord, we're asking you to hold the tornado and we're asking you to have mercy enough not to wag your head on us this morning.

The tornado picked up speed as it approached them, then turned and uprooted another row of cotton. The branches, leaves, and soft, white, downy fibers danced in its vicious and capricious clutch. Then having satisfied its hunger, the tornado suddenly sailed away through the sky.

For a moment they stood completely frozen, silently holding their breath. When they were sure the twister had finally gone, Patience and the other women laughed nervously. The children whimpered. Mother Barker's husband, the foreman and the only man in the field, adjusted his straw hat on his head.

Mother Barker stood up and smiled. "Wasn't that an amazing sight!" She surveyed the field. The mighty wind had swept a clean circle around them, leaving them untouched.

For a moment a line of worry wrinkled her forehead. She went over to Patience and placed her hands gently on the pregnant woman's stomach. "The baby's all right," Mother Barker announced with a sigh of relief.

"Look at my hands shake," said Patience.

"You might be upset naturally, but the baby's fine. This baby, I can tell, is going to be an Oklahoma wonder.

"Oklahoma!" Mother Barker hollered joyfully, her paisley headrag hanging halfway off her head. "You and your tornados and your rising rivers! We'll still be loving you, Oklahoma, till the rivers run out of water and the wind runs out of breath!

Patience smiled at Mother Barker's exuberance. The older woman's presence was comforting. Assured that her baby was all right, she stopped her trembling and laughed along with Mother Barker.

"All right," the foreman proclaimed, measuring the remaining rows of cotton with his eyes. "Let's get back to work. We've got cotton to pick!"

Patience felt awkward getting up and down from the row of cotton. Her heaviness slowed her while the tight strap of crocus sack cut into the long, muslin dress she had fashioned out of a flour bag. Now and then she shook her arm to relieve the dead feeling in her shoulder caused by the strap.

When Patience came to the end of her row, the foreman weighed her cotton on the hooked scale.

"Another fifty pounds! Believe you'll make two hundred before the day's gone."

"God willing," she answered.

"Two hundred pounds, I declare!" exclaimed Mother Barker. "I believe you'll beat me today," she said, picking alongside Patience.

"This cotton's so ripe you barely have to touch it. It just jumps in your sack."

Patience shaded her eyes and saw a cloud of chee-chee birds fly up on the east end of the field. Nothing else in the air stirred. The sun glared red-eyed and dropped heat on their bowed heads. Patience unbent herself and stretched, watching the brown chee-chee birds on the skinny, dark leaves of the miniature blackjack trees lift their wings and turn toward the sun. "I'd like to fly on away from here," she murmured. "Just like a bird. Only perch down to earth when Ifelt like it. "

"I'm afraid you're too heavy to fly, child," Mother Barker allowed, looking at Patience's swollen belly.

When the sun had left, leaving only a rosy glow at the far end of the sky, the women pulled the long sack straps off their shoulders. They straightened up, put their hands on their hips, leaned back, and shook the cramps off their backs and legs.