By the Light of My Father's Smile

"By The Light Of My Father's Smile" presents a celebration of sexuality, its absolute usefulness in the accessing of one's mature spirituality, and the father's role in assuring joy or sorrow in this arena for his female children, " says Walker. "It examines the ways imposed religion almost always acts to inhibit and harden the hearts of those who would instinctively love, and presents the richness and coherence of an alternative culture's experience of sexuality as a celebration of life, " she adds.The story begins at an outpost in the remote Sierras in Mexico, where an African American family (two daughters and their partners) from the United States come to live for several years. The father, who narrates much of the novel from the grave, finds his fifteen-year-old daughter Magdalena, having sex with a local boy named Manuelito. He beats her in a scene witnessed by her sister, Susannah. While both daughters are wounded by the beating, it is Magdalena who remains scarred throughout her life by this incident.

However, it is because of Manuelito and his tradition that reconciliation between father and daughters eventually happens. Manuelito is a Mundo, a deeply spiritual and wise tribe of mixed race, both Black and Indian. The Mundo are unimpressed by a world concerned primarily with exploitation and monetary gain. They treasure their relationship to the earth and ultimately teach the father, who believes his daughter's sexuality is evil, that in fact sexuality is a blessing. In the end, it is the Mundo way of life that leads the father back to his daughters.