Notes from a Black Woman's Diary

Starred review from January 1, 2019
A multigenre collection of Collins' (Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?, 2016) previously unpublished writing--fiction, letters, diary entries, plays, and screenplays--collected here and edited by her daughter, 30 years after the author's death."The greatest marvel of Collins's writing is that she is a magician in her use of interiority," writes Danielle Evans (Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, 2010) in the collection's introduction. "She can just slip underneath a moment of tension barely noticed by those in the world of the story and give us a character's entire interior life, but she is also a master of the moments when...all pretense drops away and the unsayable is given words and said out loud." It is, as the works here quickly demonstrate, a mastery that transcends form. The book opens with a trio of short stories, each of them centered around a woman as she is observed, followed by an excerpt from an unfinished novel, Lollie: A Suburban Tale, in which a bohemian husband and wife fight for narrative control of their marriage. It's a fight that ends prematurely; the immediate tragedy is the excerpt cuts off. The fragments from Collins' actual life--first the diary entries and then the letters--are as arrestingly clear as the fiction, small and expansive at once. Dated Sept. 9: "They're selling an old medieval house on Mason's Road, where the rooms go on endlessly, like a labyrinth. We went there on Saturday and bought five red chairs for the kitchen." And reflecting on life on an April 11: "Instead of dealing with race I went in search of love...and what I found was a very hungry colored lady." The bulk of the work here, though, are the scripts, one for her 1982 feature film, Losing Ground--a "comedy drama" about a philosophy professor who finds herself starring in a student film that hews unsettlingly close to her real life--and one for the stage play The Brothers, the story of a striving middle-class black family, told by its grieving women.Reading Collins work the same themes over again and again across mediums is a rare pleasure--as close as most of us will ever come to her spectacular mind.

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February 1, 2019
The randomness of literary success is terrifying. Great writers are only recognized years after their deaths; forgotten literary works are recovered in attics and archives. What if those discoveries and rediscoveries never happened? Fortunately for posterity, Kathleen Collins, author of the short story collection, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love, finally published in 2016, has been justly rescued from obscurity. Collins, who died of breast cancer in 1988, age 46, was prolific in several genres. This new collection highlights her strengths as dramatist, screenwriter, and short-story creator. Whether she's writing about five sisters-in-law recounting the troubled past of a color struck family, a young widow dreading that her son's demons will drive him to replicate the suicide of his father, or two women forced to confront their racial animosity at a psychic's office, Collins limns incisive portraits of artistic, intellectual Black women stretched to their limits that glimmer against a background of racism, sexism, and just plain life. A timely reclamation of a remarkable voice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from November 15, 2018

Prior to her death in 1988 at age 46, Collins was best known for Losing Ground (1982), one of the first American feature films produced by an African American woman. Her renown grew with the excellent posthumously published short story collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love. Now Collins's groundbreaking work as a writer, filmmaker, activist, and educator is rapidly being recognized. This collected volume of fiction, plays, and autobiographical material, edited by Collins's daughter Lorez Collins, adds to the author's evolving reputation. Of particular interest are the short story "Nina Simone," in which two narrators discuss their own troubled relationship through the lens of the famous singer; searing commentary on race and gender in the diaries; a potent excerpt from the unfinished novel Lollie: A Suburban Tale; and the Losing Ground screenplay (including copious directorial notes by the author). VERDICT While not as eye-opening as Collins's earlier stories, this compilation will add appreciation for a talented writer whose life was cut too short as well as provide hope for the recovery of her previously unpublished work. Recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 8/20/18.]--L.J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2018

Prior to her death in 1988 at age 46, Collins was best known for Losing Ground (1982), one of the first American feature films produced by an African American woman. Her renown grew with the excellent posthumously published short story collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love. Now Collins's groundbreaking work as a writer, filmmaker, activist, and educator is rapidly being recognized. This collected volume of fiction, plays, and autobiographical material, edited by Collins's daughter Lorez Collins, adds to the author's evolving reputation. Of particular interest are the short story "Nina Simone," in which two narrators discuss their own troubled relationship through the lens of the famous singer; searing commentary on race and gender in the diaries; a potent excerpt from the unfinished novel Lollie: A Suburban Tale; and the Losing Ground screenplay (including copious directorial notes by the author). VERDICT While not as eye-opening as Collins's earlier stories, this compilation will add appreciation for a talented writer whose life was cut too short as well as provide hope for the recovery of her previously unpublished work. Recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 8/20/18.]--L.J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.