Author Description

WILL LEAMON'S most intriguing novel, Mama, Me & 'Em, inspired by the loss of a loved one to the complications of Alzheimer's disease, derives its roots from the many fables and folklore passed down from generation to generation. MME is a rich, exciting and compassionate series of short stories, vignettes and chapters. MME focuses on some of the most tumultuous phases in the history of our great nation- war, racial prejudice, inequality and injustice. Leamon provokes us to think about our future and reflect upon many aspects of our lives that we sometimes take for granted. At the outset, Leamon introduces us to the trying, born-athome birth of a young Black mother's first child-a son- during the uncertainties and turmoil of the first year of World War II, in Charlotte, North Carolina. The young mother, Emma Mae, named her new son, Willie John. Willie John narrating as a child and an adult, is never afraid to reveal to us his true emotions. He is honest, sincere, opinionated and quite frank. At times, Willie John can be poetic, a storyteller, and a philosopher and at other times a bitter man-rightly or wrongly---- right up until the death of his beloved mother. Within every subsequent chapter Will Leamon's readers become mesmerized in a time warp of a Black American family's life and American culture between 1942 and 2003. We migrate north to Brooklyn, New York with a strong and determined mother and her son fleeing an unhappy marriage and the inhumane Jim Crow laws in the south. We share the lives and experiences of a mother, Emma Mae (Mama), her son, Willie John (Me) and a host of other interesting characters ('Em) as they attempt to deal with each other and society.