First Communion

Focusing on the lineage and traditions of pivotal African American and Irish women writers, Jacqueline Fulmer traces the line of descent from Mary Lavin to Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and from Zora Neale Hurston to Toni Morrison. She argues that these authors adopt strategies of indirection influenced by folklore, such as signifying, masking, sly civility, and the grotesque. Their magical and magisterial folk women characters entice readers toward controversial subjects.