Neecey's Lullaby

January 9, 2006
Burks's unflinching, precisely observed story of a girl's will to survive her hopeless surroundings—a Chicago home ravaged by poverty, abuse and neglect—follows Neecey from her childhood in the mid 1950s to her early 20s, in 1973. Burks recounts a bleak coming-of-age for Neecey, beginning with the dissolution of her parents' marriage. The sudden appearance of a man claiming to be her real father sets in motion the philandering of her de facto father, Jesse, and the jealous rages of her mother, Ruby. In a broken home ruled by Ruby's fists and extension cord lashings, self-sacrificing Neecey assumes an adult role as surrogate mother to her younger siblings, whose numbers grow from three to five as Ruby barters her body for male comfort. Giving predatory lovers free range over her home while leaving Neecey to cook and care for the children, Ruby displays a destructive self-absorption unmitigated by any sense of responsibility to her family. While Burks (SilkyDreamGirl
) skillfully charts Neecey's struggles in a bleak urban landscape, she demonizes Ruby, placing a two-dimensional character at the core of an otherwise moving second novel.

December 15, 2005
Family secrets drive the action in this heartbreaking story of abuse, betrayal, forgiveness, and sibling love. Growing up in a packed tenement on Chicago's South Side in the early 1950s, Neecey, seven, is so happy to be her loving daddy's little girl. But then she discovers he is not her daddy. He disappears; her mom, Ruby, takes in a succession of lovers; and before Neecey is even a teenager, she finds herself mother/guardian of all her younger sisters and brothers, protecting them from Ruby's abuse and neglect and from the predatory men in the house. The violence, verbal and physical, is constant. But so is the loving kindness, achingly expressed ("You always did see good even when there was none," Daddy tells Neecey). Yet there is absolutely no sentimentality. Neecey tries desperately to get away and make a life for herself; the helpful relatives are overbearing; the kind teacher makes things worse; the welfare system is cruel. Best of all is the plot, with surprises that turn out to be not surprising at all.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)