Some thoughts:
I do not intend to fancy myself a person who knows much about black history. To be honest, I relate to this book more in the part of the awakening feminism.
I was done seeing Celia try so hard to call Hilly and her minions and get no call back at all so it was such a relief when I read Minny told her the truth and she finally cut down the damned mimosa tree and stopped trying to please those stupid hens. It seems that she has determined to acknowledge her own identity and to be the tough bitch from Sugar Ditch once again. As for Celia’s secret, the writer has kept readers in suspense about what she has been doing for so long that we start to wonder if she is a drug dealer, and yet she simply has had many tragic miscarriages and is desperate enough to take catch tonic. I think the writer has made the revelation an anti-climax on purpose to deliver a hint of irony that women back then would be mortifyingly ashamed of not being able to bear children. And there were not any people or organizations to heal their pain after what they were put through.
And Minny also has her own nightmares. She is being beaten up by her husband every now and then. And she clearly does not have the nerves to leave him as she has 5 children to take care of. It does sound odd that a seemingly strong woman like Minny would be too scared to leave her abusing alcoholic husband but the shit happens in reality every day. I myself was a victim of domestic violence even though I was not found bruised at work. I underwent a gradual process of transformation from an over-confident woman into a paranoid wretch, and it took much courage to walk out of the nightmare -like marriage.
