Holler, Child

March 1, 2023

Watkins follows up the warmly received debut novel Perish with a debut collection, Holler, Child, that continues her exploration of family in a Texas setting. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 26, 2023
Watkins (Perish) portrays West Texas characters faced with loss, disappointment, and betrayal in this stunning collection. In “The Mother,” a woman is hounded by journalists about her recently deceased adult son, Joshua, who claimed to be the Messiah. The unnamed narrator of the title story reckons with her past sexual trauma after her teenage son is accused of rape. In a gut-wrenching turn, Watkins illuminates the extent to which the narrator goes to protect her child even as doing so threatens to undo her. Many of the stories hinge on the revelation of a woman’s power, whether she’s a fierce mother or a taken-for-granted wife. For example, “Sweat” finds Lotrece caught in a lackluster marriage to Clayton, who cheats, smokes, overeats, and fails to follow through on household repairs. But Lotrece has the last laugh when she wakes Clayton in the middle of the night by pointing his own pistol at him. (“His fear in that moment gave her the first delight she’d felt in a long while,” Watkins writes). Adding to the fierce characterizations, Watkins beautifully conveys a sense of place (“Whole house ain’t no thicker—no stronger than a big old piece of plywood,” says the narrator of “The Mother”). These kinetic stories are no less powerful than Watkins’s marvelous debut novel. Agent: Samantha Shea, Georges Borchardt Agency.

August 1, 2023
Eleven searingly alive stories about Black men and women from West Texas explore the ways remorse and resentment can coexist in secrecy. The opening story, "The Mother," carries an emotional wallop while setting up the collection's theme through the voice of a self-proclaimed "old junkie whore" forced to face troubling memories about her role in shaping her long-abandoned son, a cult leader who claimed to be the Messiah and led his mostly white followers to commit mass suicide. The title story, another tour de force, also concerns a single mother, who must decide how far she'll go to protect her "good kid" after he's accused of a violent act not unlike one she suffered but keeps secret. Children, in person or memory, haunt these pages, beloved even when sources of grief. For mothers, of course, but in a refreshing turn, Watkins also pays serious attention to the importance of paternal love. After the death of his infant son in "Dog Person," a father's problematic attachment to his Great Dane--animals play symbolic roles throughout--obscures the secret betrayals destroying his once-perfect marriage. In "Tipping," a woman almost overlooks her dead husband's cheating and lying because he was a loving stepfather. Watkins' protagonists want to rise above traumatic childhoods but fear, often correctly, that they are failing as parents and spouses. The politics of race are a given in these stories, and equally important are the socioeconomic differences--money, social status, education--that cause divisions difficult to surmount. "Cutting Horse" is an aria about the doomed attempts of a "part gangster, part cowboy" to reinvent himself for his genteel accountant wife. Watkins powerfully depicts unsustainable relationships, but she offers solace in the tough-minded love story "Moving the Animal," about a woman caring for her husband after his stroke. In the final story, "Time After," a sister's search for the brother she rejected out of religious rigidity reveals love's redemptive possibilities. Granular yet transcendent storytelling.

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Starred review from July 1, 2023
Watkins follows her debut novel, Perish (2022), with a collection of short stories that also focuses on the lasting effects of generational trauma on rural Black communities in East Texas. These tales explore fractured relationships between mothers and sons, couples grappling with the aftermath of infidelity, and children rejected by their families because of their choice of partner. In ""The Mother,"" a woman who doesn't want her son to see her as a ""junkie whore"" tells him he's the son of God with dire consequences once a group accepts him as a prophet. The mother in the title story must choose between holding her son accountable for raping a young girl and protecting him the way the mother of her own rapist did. While most of the stories are narrated by women, Watkins also portrays the complexity of male protagonists, such as the husband in ""Cutting Horse,"" who pitches a tent outside his house in a white suburb after the wife he'd ""shed anything for"" blames young Black men like Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner for their deaths at the hands of police officers. When an escaped horse appears, he takes the opportunity to reclaim his former identity. Recommend Watkins to fans of Brit Bennett, Angela Flournoy, and Lakeshia Carr.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 22, 2023

Set in the same Black Texas community as Watkins's debut novel, Perish, a Black Caucus ALA Honor book, this debut collection uses vivid, edgy writing to tell powerfully affecting stories about people meeting life's challenges. An ailing woman refuses to give up her secrets to a series of clueless young white reporters; a survivor of rape who adores the grown son that resulted from her assault fiercely calls him out on his predatory behavior; a sister sets out to find the estranged brother who's always had her back; and a wife fed up with a mismatched, emotionally careless husband pulls a gun on him that may or may not work. VERDICT Watkins expands her grasp with stories that are distinctive yet create an indivisible, propulsive whole, and readers will be hard-pressed to put the book down.--Barbara Hoffert

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