Our house is smelling like lasagna, wine, and people, mostly girls sweating and perfume. One girl is smoking weed. Everyone is laughing. Mommy puts me down and goes to open her presents. All the people have presents in their hands and are holding them out to her. A lady, who looks nice but when she smiles all her teeth is black, is holding out a pretty present tied with a gold ribbon.
I want to say, but no words come out of my mouth, and Mommy takes the box. My name is Claireece Precious Jones. Two weeks from now? My head all dark inside. Feel like giant river I never cross in front me now. Ms Rain say, You not writing Precious.
Writing could be the boat carry you to the other side. One time in your journal told me you had never really told your story. I think telling your story git you over that river Precious. Today is the day you have been waiting for when you would finally begin to live when you would at last open the door.
This is the what, the circumstance, the more you have been withholding, saving to give. Today is the day you have been waiting for. S apphire never flinches from the truth. When her debut novel Push came out 15 years ago, readers were enthralled and appalled by protagonist Precious Jones, the New York girl who was abused by her father and failed by the system — only to fight back, educate herself and transcend her background.
The book owed its initial success to its use by social workers, abuse survivors' groups and psychologists treating victims of rape and incest. But in the film adaptation, Precious, promoted heavily by Oprah Winfrey, catapaulted it into the mainstream. Nominated for six Oscars, including best actress for the young unknown Gabourey Sidibe, it also featured excellent performances from musician Mo'Nique, who won an Oscar as the abuse-colluding mother, and Mariah Carey as a social worker, prompting the classic line from Precious, "I mean, what are you?
Are you Italian? Are you some kind of black? It was also one of the few times the white, male bastion of the Oscars was stormed by a film with so many vivid roles for women, of all colours, sizes and ages. Sapphire dismisses critics who complained it was unrealistically brutal, saying this reaction reflects audiences' ignorance about the ubiquity of abuse. True to this belief, Sapphire's second novel, The Kid, is even more unflinching. It takes up the story of Abdul, Precious's son, the product of rape by her father.
Abdul's bleak descent into abuse is balanced by his streetwise angry slang and the sharp descriptions of his Harlem hometown and reads like Oliver Twist with added rape. The novel begins with Precious's funeral and Abdul's introduction to the foster care system among disturbed sex abuse victims and perpetrators, where he is sexually assaulted by his roommate. From there he is moved to a Catholic boarding school where the pupils are groomed by the teachers and eventually go on to assault younger boys.
Later Abdul turns to sex work, before a talent for dance offers the possibility of redemption. Because of the explicit scenes and the focus on Abdul as a victim who becomes a perpetrator, Sapphire thinks it is unlikely this book will get the Hollywood film treatment.
In The Kid, it's so dark in what it says about Abdul. We wouldn't be able to get it made without an R rating — and with an R rating not everyone would be able to see it. She believes there are still certain expectations of what black American writers' subject matter should be.
Her novel, Push , was unpublished before being discovered by the renowned feminist literary agent Charlotte Sheedy, whose interest created demand and eventually led to a bidding war. After its publishing, Sapphire noted in an interview with William Powers that "she noticed Push for sale in one of the Penn Station bookstores, and that moment it struck her she's no longer a creature of the tiny world of art magazines and homeless-shelters from which she came.
The film based on her novel premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January ; it was renamed Precious to avoid confusion with the action film Push. Gabourey Sidibe was nominated for best actress for her role as Precious; Mo'Nique was nominated for best supporting—and won—for her portrayal of as Mary. Sapphire herself appears briefly in the film as a daycare worker.
Sapphire's writing was the subject of an academic symposium at Arizona State University in Sapphire lives and works in New York City. Push is actually based on her own childhood.
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