Push

From Strand Bookstore

Precious Jones, an illiterate sixteen-year-old black girl living in Harlem, has been raped and impregnated by her father, and battered by her mother. A determined, highly radical teacher helps her to begin a journey oftransformation and redemption by teaching Precious to write. A haunting, relentless, remorseless and inspiring story told by the NYC-based performance artist and poet. 192p.

From the Publisher

Relentless, remorseless, and inspirational, this "horrific, hope-filled story" (Newsday) is certain to haunt a generation of readers. Precious Jones, 16 years old and pregnant by her father with her second child, meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption.

Review

Alex Clark - Times Literary Supplement
"...[S]hort, brutal and painfully affecting....The novel is a story of almost total despair which trades on the possibility of hope. Most astutely drawn is the way in which Precious both comprehends her situation and is blind to it....Precious has a depth of character, humour, perversity and an engaging mixture of sassiness and naivety."

Review

Lisa Kennedy - Village Voice
"...[A]t the heart of PUSH is a lovely faith in the word. Literacy can't protect Precious from AIDS, but it can create wonder--not just bitterness."

Review

Michiko Kakutani - New York Times Book Review
"[A] much-talked-about first novel...that manages to be disturbing, affecting and manipulative all at the same time....Precious's street-smart, angry voice...conjures up Precious's gritty, unforgiving world. Sapphire somehow finds lyricism in Precious's life, and in endowing Precious with her own generous gifts for language, she allows us entree into her heroine's state of mind....Alice Walker's ghost hovers more and more insistently over PUSH as the novel progresses, lending Precious's story a blunt ideological subtext."

Review

Jeannine DeLombard - Philadelphia Inquirer
"Despite its political incorrectness and its grim take on the realities of life in the inner city, PUSH is nevertheless a fascinating novel that may well find a place in the African American literary canon....Sapphire's work is sure to win as many hearts as it disturbs minds."

Review

P. J. Mark - Quarterly Black Review of Books
"Sapphire displays a potent ability with language and even balances her intense narrative with pointed humor. The author refuses to serve as either moralizer or judge, but that unflinching quality is what makes PUSH especially challenging."

More about the book

Claireece Precious Jones is an overweight, illiterate black teenager pregnant with her second child--both the result of incest by her father--and infected with the AIDS virus--also thanks to her father. This first novel by the poet and performance artist Sapphire tells the story of how Precious miraculously finds redemption and deliverance through the efforts of one of her teachers, who teaches her to read and write.