Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush

Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush is a 1982 young adult fantasy novel by African-American author Virginia Hamilton. Set in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, it follows fourteen-year-old Teresa (“Tree”) Pratt, who meets a mysterious ghost Brother Rush. Brother Rush shows her a window into the Pratt family’s past, which helps Tree understand their deepest anxieties and traumas. The novel has been characterized as a “family story” for its broad reading audience and themes of community and healing, especially as they pertain to the experiences of African-American people. For its contribution to African-American literature, it received the Coretta Scott King Author Award in 1983, as well as the National Book Award that same year.

Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush opens in an unnamed town in the Midwest. Tree lives with her mother, Viola (“M’Vy”) Pratt, and big brother, Dabney. Because M’Vy is often at her nursing job, Tree is effectively the mother to Dabney, who has a cognitive disability. M’Vy only sees them one day a week, justifying her absence with the claim that she is too busy working to keep the family afloat. In reality, she is overwhelmed with guilt for neglecting Dabney most of his life and feels too paralyzed to repair her relationship with either child. As Teresa comes of age, boys on the street start to catcall her. They coin her nickname “Tree,” mainly at her expense, for it refers to her growing breasts. Tree holds her schoolbooks close to conceal her body, but it doesn’t reduce the abuse. At home, she cares for Dab’s basic needs and does the general housekeeping. She also helps Dab study for school; with her help, he just gets by. Though M’Vy is a neglectful mother and rationalizes Dab’s complex struggle by claiming that he is mentally retarded, she is happy that Tree and Dab nurture each other.

One afternoon, while returning home from school, Tree sees a man whom she considers attractive. By his manner and dress, he seems out of place in their lower-class neighborhood. She notices him a few more times over the following weeks. Meanwhile, she looks for ways to relieve herself of her domestic boredom. She starts a new project cleaning out a closet-sized room full of junk, hoping to find an interesting purpose for it. One day, she and Dab transform it into a small drawing studio. Later, when Tree returns to the studio, she finds Brother Rush waiting for her. Initially mute with shock, Tree then realizes that Brother Rush is standing partly inside her drawing table. Unsure what to do with the new, seemingly innocuous ghost, Tree tries to figure out why he visited them. He does not speak to her and seems unaware of the living world. However, he holds a mirrored object that Tree discovers can transport her into the past.



Tree uses Brother Rush’s mirror to visit the previous generations of the Pratt family. She discovers several troubling things that have been kept hidden. For example, their father abandoned them, and Dab suffers from a hereditary disease that their ancestors tried but failed to suppress. As Tree is enlightened about her family’s dark past, she has a better insight into M’Vy’s tragic life. Unable to move past her fear, shame, and self-centeredness, M’Vy has always wished that Dab would die to relieve her of the mental burden of his daily suffering. The novel culminates when Tree finds out that Dab has died due to their mother’s neglect. This time, she breaks down in anger and rebukes M’Vy for ruining their lives. She and her mother grow bitter and distant. However, as the novel ends, Tree concludes that she is ultimately in control of the way she acts, feels, and remembers. She chooses to forgive the world for its great injustice and strives to live well in honor of her brother. Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush shows how suffering and difficult memories can be transformed into tools for self-improvement and emotional healing.