Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
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Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
I’ll be honest. I started reading Possessing the Secret of Joy for a class. I’d avoided reading Alice Walker in high school, and I didn’t really have any desire to read her work in college. I assumed her writing would be dry and monotonous like the other novels my 11th grade English professor assigned us. I couldn’t have been further off.
Walker's novel reveals the mind of Tashi (also referred to as Evelyn, Tashi-Evelyn, and Mrs. Johnson), a woman from the Olinkan tribe in an unnamed African country who underwent female circumcision. The story follows Tashi’s struggle to come to terms with her circumcision and the efforts of her family to support her, as readers are left to piece together the events of Tashi’s life.
In its own way, Possessing the Secret of Joy is a sort of psychological thriller. Walker switches from narrator to narrator, time period to time period. Each narrator tells a different story from a different perspective, giving the story a fractured timeline. The complicated structure of the story reminds the reader of a troubled psyche similar to that of the main character. Walker’s writing style and the unique structure of her novel are refreshing among the multitude of linear, singular narrations.
Don’t get me wrong, Possessing the Secret of Joy is not a light read. It is dark, sometimes horrifying, and often disheartening. You will be appalled, put it down, and not want to come back for a while. And then you will come back, keep reading and not be able to stop. And while the ending is surprising, it is certainly satisfying.
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