Third Girl From the Left

July 18, 2005
In her second novel, Southgate (The Fall of Rome
) explores how one generation's liberation becomes another's idea of constraint. Nested narratives follow three black women—Mildred, daughter Angela, and granddaughter Tamara—briefly breaking tradition to define themselves. Tamara, an aspiring Spike Lee, frames the tale of Angela, who escapes a prosaic life playing the obligatory naked black woman in the blaxploitation films of the 1970s. Hollywood's limitations turn Angela's dreams to frustration, and her outsized sexual displays incur her mother's wrath. Bold decisions and compromises leave Angela, a single mother working in a doctor's office by day, watching videos of her glory days at night with her female lover, while insisting that she is not a "dyke." The narrative spirals back to Mildred, showing how movies—a conduit through which Mildred and teenage Angela connect—are a window to a better world. The narrative culminates in Tamara's documentary about Angela, Mildred and herself, black women in America, "making their lives mean something where they can." While what should invigorate—Tamara taking the creative reins of a form her elders limitedly participated in—lacks conviction because of a too-neat conclusion, the book's emotional intensity and its characters' complex motivation overcome occasional simplification.