Po Mans Child

A vivid assortment of characters inhabit Blackman's first novel, a haunting, dark and visceral story of family entanglements, failure and survival. When she was young, Po Childs numbed herself emotionally to such a degree that she could only feel when she sank the blade of a knife into her skin. Now 27, she is still grappling with the knife. When S&M play with her lover, Mary, goes awry, Po checks herself into a mental hospital for 72 hours of ""observation and rest."" Here she recollects her family history. Her father, Gregory Childs, a once aspiring jazz musician, wins his store, the Party Shack, on a poker hand, only to quietly gamble his business away. Her mother, Lillian, regretfully gives up her dreams of college and career to raise Po, sister Onya, and brother Bobby. When Gregory has an affair with his brother's (white) wife, Jessica, everyone becomes unhinged. Ray, the cuckolded husband, repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempts suicide, and Lillian succumbs first to alcohol, then prescription drugs. Onya has a nervous breakdown, while Bobby escapes first into the arms of his imaginary playmates, then into the abyss of heroin addiction, and finally into the family of the Ministers of Allah. Bobby visits Po at the hospital, with resisting Onya in tow, determined to convince Po to attend their father's funeral. Although the plot is unnecessarily convoluted, Blackman's tale of a family's bleak and twisted history strikingly illustrates the way even a wounded heart will expand to accommodate the many kinds of love (both nurturing and frightening) it craves. Author tour. (June) FYI: Blackman edited Manic D's anthology Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco, an ALA Gay and Lesbian Book Award Finalist.