Those Bones Are Not My Child

by Toni Cade Bambara

Pantheon, 848 pp., $27.50

Bambara (The Salt Eaters) invested the last 12 years of her life in this book based on the Atlanta child murders. Paralyzed by the killer’s appetite and particularity, the City Too Busy to Hate fell victim to the class, racial, and political suspicions that characterize a confused and degraded culture. Symbolizing this decline is the plight of Marzala Rawls Spencer, whose young son Sundiata (Sonny) turns up missing following a camping trip in the summer of 1980. Zala and her estranged husband, Spence, confront the KKK, the chilling innuendo of a child pornography ring, and a shocked and ineffective bureacracy in their search for their missing son. Brimming with singular compassion, the book meanders in its voice and focus and is hobbled by drawn-out depictions of bureaucratic missteps. But Bambara tells a powerful and heartfelt story from the depths of a significant catastrophe (she lived in Atlanta during the murders), and she pays attention to often-overlooked aspects of human tragedy.

This article appears in January 21 • 2000.

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