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The Beade family is a scorned, wretchedly poor family in a small town in
Texas. Willa Mae is a con artist/prostitute who had numerous brush-ins with the law.
Willa Mae is known for her singing and joyously sings everywhere.
Willa
Mae falls in love with Dill. Dill is assumed to be a man, but in
reality she is a
“butch” woman. Willa has an affair with a man, gets
pregnant, and gives birth to her
daughter, Billy. Willa and Billy don’t
get along that well.
A heavy
theme in this book is abortion. Willa dies later on when she
tries to give herself a
coat-hanger type abortion. Billy, once she finds out her husband-to-be is already
married, seeks out a doctor for an
abortion.
Willa apparently amassed
quite a bit of very expensive jewelry from her
clients and victims. Upon her death,
Dill takes much of her jewelry and
sells it. Much of the book is about Billy’s quest
to dig up her mother
to find the remaining treasure. In the beginning, Billy
obviously resents
her mother. The more she goes looking for her mother’s treasure,
the more she seems to find forgiveness for her mother.
En route to the
grave where Willa’s body is located, the Beades run into
trouble with the cops. An
angry Dill is waiting for them when they get
to the grave and threatens to kill them.
When it appears that the Beades’
luck is always destined to be bad, Billy convinces
Dill to let her dig.
At that point, luck turns for the Beade family. The broken
relationships, even between those who died, are mended.
Getting
Mother’s Body is an excellent book on a daughter’s quest
for her mother. And it
wonderfully succeeds in taking the reader along
on the journey.
