Ola Vay

Beauty of a Black Woman Ola Vay

Tamia Hearndon grows up in the average Afro-American home except for one secret she hides, she is an incest victim. Since the age of 5, Tamia keeps a family secret, she tries desperately to uncover to her Mother and whoever will help her. Beaten and bruised, she learns to hold more than this secret but feelings of shame, guilt, and sexual repression. No one suspects the abuse occurring in the Hearndon household. Everyone only sees the new car every other year, the big fine white house, and the great job Denton, Sr. holds as a respected blue collar worker, and the lovely decorated home Lynda keeps immaculate. How well behaved the four of six living Hearndon children are. No one could ever believe the repeated physical beatings with broom-handles, extension cords, and repeated DHS interferences that mar this all-Afro-American family. Until as a means of dealing with a rape, Tamia decides to write about her life, her interracial marriage, a lost love, and two beautiful children she mothers. Youll love the strong character humor of Tamias bestfriend Sasha, and her own life of tumultuous love affairs, and their struggles as single parents in the dating world. Tamia is relieved upon reconciling her life with her writing, speaking openly with her mother Lynda, and being reunited with her old teeanage sweetheart, Tim. How does she recover? How does she regain her self-respect, destroying the old Tamia to rebuild a new Tamia better, stronger, more loving, compassionate, and much wiser? Beauty Of A Black Woman is not just an Afro-American womans story of triumph, and self-reconciliation but a tribute to incest/abuse survivors everywhere who have had to undergo this terrible, controversial American family issue of cycle violence.