It's often said that Black women are magic but what if they really are mythological? Growing
up as a Black girl in America Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton yearned for stories she could connect
to-true ones of course but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world
and her place in it. Greek and Roman myths felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins and
tales by Black authors were often rooted too far in the past a continent away. Mouton's memoir
is a praise song and an elegy for Black womanhood. She tells her own story while remixing myths
and drawing on traditions from all over the world: mothers literally grow eyes in the backs of
their heads children dust the childhood off their bodies and women come to love the wildness
of the hair they once tried to tame. With a poet's gift for lyricism and poignancy Mouton
reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother living
in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger and finally
learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless playful
but incendiary Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form.
