In 2007 I heard my first English college professor hype up a book called The Color Purple during a lecture in my first semester at community college. He always spoke of his favorite authors with all the lovingness and none of the snobbery that come with a carefully cultivated literary taste. We never covered this novel in class, but I registered the title and Alice Walker's name and put them in the back of my mind. Someday, I thought.
Flash forward to 2013. I'm strolling around a flea market in Santa Fe, NM on a Saturday morning, 45 mins away from the small studio I was renting for a semester long internship, and I spot neat row of books at the end of the dusty lot. Now, if you're in the habit of fishing inside bins of clearance and used books, you know I didn't get my hopes up as I walked towards it. I raised my eyebrows within seconds. John Updike, Orhan Pamuk, Saul Bellow. And there it was with the others: Alice Walker. I looked up to find the owner of the table. It was a middle aged man, donning what some people call strawberry blonde hair and looking slightly disheveled. The dusty hours he'd spent that morning sitting in the sun were apparent.
-This is quite the collection, I said.
I guess, he said sleepily. These were my mother's. She read a lot. Passed away a couple months and, well, I can't say I read much myself. Didn't know what else to do with them. You can have as many as you want for a dollar. The thicker ones for two.
After a brief conversation and transaction, he gave me a tired smile and I carried a short stack of his mother's books as I strolled and looked for my mom, who was visiting and already carrying all kinds of small treasures.
It would be a year before I would actually read it.
First, I would have to go back to El Paso, write a thesis while job hunting, accept an offer (yay!), do a little travel for work to Houston, Cleveland, and Hampton, VA (the edition I bought is a hefty volume that also includes another two of Alice Walker's works: The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Meridian, and doesn't lend itself to be carried around that much), and move to Alabama. Yes, 2014 has been pretty crazy. And it wouldn't be until I was curling up a reading chair at my new home to I picked up this book and read Celie's first prayer.
Celie broke my heart. Better said, her story made my heart break along hers. But as I told a friend of mine the morning after I finished reading this book, it proceeded to mend it and wrap a blanket around it.
The Color Purple is not one of those titles that wear a tacky golden sticker thanks to the efforts of the publishing house's marketing team. Its acclaim was well-deserved as is the place it earned among the American greats. Why? Because the author can deliver a shock-full of human experience that is alien to you and your lifestyle with a single line. No detailed explanations, no fool-proof contexts. Just the truth of one person, one character, that resonates with you and maybe humans everywhere.
"I know what I'm thinking bout, I think. Nothing. And as much of it as I can".
It had been a long time since I'd felt found by a book. And like every single other time it's happened, I'm grateful and a bit more bountiful than I was before it reached me.
Thank you, Alice.
