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A review by rachelemm
In Search of the Color Purple: The Story of an American Masterpiece by Salamishah Tillet
4.0
The Color Purple by Alice Walker is my favourite book of all time so when I saw there was a book about how that story came into being I knew I had to read it. Reading Tillet's book gave me the context of the novel as I hoped but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I got much more than that. Tillet bares herself to us as readers sharing her own experience of sexual assault, an experience which helped her resonate so strongly with the character of Celie who herself is sexually assaulted as a young girl.
Her strong connection with Celie and its feminist author, Alice Walker, caused Tillet to start the journey of understanding how the story came to be the phenomenon it is today. Along the way she learns the novel was not initially well received by critics and that the black community was largely unhappy with the way in which black men were portrayed. Tillet also learns the complicated story of the novel's depiction on screen and on stage. Strangely Steven Spielberg the director of the film, chose to discard the screenplay Walker wrote in favour of one that seemed to shy away from confronting some of the more difficult issues raised in the book. Walker herself did not like the film and felt it missed the message she was trying to convey. Having had this experience, she was understandably wary when she was approached by another white man to take the story to the stage. Ultimately, she agreed to the proposal and was happier with the stage version than the one on screen. However, Walker's experience both with the film and stage versions of The Color Purple speaks to a larger question of who gets to tell which stories and why own voices representation is so important.
I thought Tillet did a good job of explaining why The Color of Purple is such an important book to her and the complicated story of its publication, its journey to the screen and its most recent incarnation on the stage. I learned things I didn't know about the original and appreciated Tillet's willingness to share details of her own life. This book is very much for fans of The Color Purple, those who haven't read the book or have no interest in reading it may find their minds wandering but for me it was an enlightening and enjoyable experience and has only further enshrined Walker's classic as one of my all time favourites.
Her strong connection with Celie and its feminist author, Alice Walker, caused Tillet to start the journey of understanding how the story came to be the phenomenon it is today. Along the way she learns the novel was not initially well received by critics and that the black community was largely unhappy with the way in which black men were portrayed. Tillet also learns the complicated story of the novel's depiction on screen and on stage. Strangely Steven Spielberg the director of the film, chose to discard the screenplay Walker wrote in favour of one that seemed to shy away from confronting some of the more difficult issues raised in the book. Walker herself did not like the film and felt it missed the message she was trying to convey. Having had this experience, she was understandably wary when she was approached by another white man to take the story to the stage. Ultimately, she agreed to the proposal and was happier with the stage version than the one on screen. However, Walker's experience both with the film and stage versions of The Color Purple speaks to a larger question of who gets to tell which stories and why own voices representation is so important.
I thought Tillet did a good job of explaining why The Color of Purple is such an important book to her and the complicated story of its publication, its journey to the screen and its most recent incarnation on the stage. I learned things I didn't know about the original and appreciated Tillet's willingness to share details of her own life. This book is very much for fans of The Color Purple, those who haven't read the book or have no interest in reading it may find their minds wandering but for me it was an enlightening and enjoyable experience and has only further enshrined Walker's classic as one of my all time favourites.