Mama — Terry McMillan

A “funny [and] touching” novel of an African American woman determined to triumph, by the #1 New York Times�"bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale (Detroit Free Press).
 
Mildred Peacock is fed up with poverty -- and with the jealous rampages of her husband, Crook. When Crook runs over her foot with his '59 Mercury, she finally kicks him out to raise her five kids on her own.
 
Resourceful and sly, sassy and sexy, she's willing to do just about anything to pay the bills. But she loses job after job, and one man after another, until alcohol and pills are her only comfort. But as long as her children need her, she has no intention of giving up, in this “tough novel about a tough family,” from the author of Disappearing Acts and How Stella Got Her Groove Back (The New Yorker).
 
“Earthy, realistic characters who can walk out of the pages and onto the streets of black America . . . an admirable novel.” -- San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A touching tale of one mother's unwavering strength.” -- Detroit Monthly