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Pop (River)
Mam is Jojo’s maternal grandmother. Like many women in her family, Mam has healing powers, psychic foresight, and the gift of being able to communicate with the spirits of dead people. She tries to pass on this knowledge to Leonie, but––as Jojo argues––Mam’s instinct for healing and care is not present in her daughter. When the novel begins, Mam is very sick with cancer; after her diagnosis, she’d vowed to cure herself, but this did not happen. Even after many years of marriage Mam and Pop remain deeply in love. Her death at the end of the novel has a profound impact on everyone in the family.
Mam Quotes in Sing, Unburied, Sing
The Sing, Unburied, Sing quotes below are all either spoken by Mam or refer to Mam. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5: Jojo
Quotes
She ain't Mam. She ain't Pop. She ain't never healed nothing or grown nothing in her life, and she don't know.
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Chapter 7: Leonie
Quotes
It feels good to be mean, to speak past the baby I can't hit and let that anger touch another. The one I'm never good enough for. Never Mama for. Just Leonie, a name wrapped around the same disappointed syllables I've heard from Mama, from Pop, even from Given, my whole fucking life.
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Chapter 11: Jojo
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I ain't never have the talent for it. Seeing the dead. I could read people, read the future or the past in they bodies. Know what was wrong or needed by their songs: in the plants, in the animals, too. But never saw the dead. Wanted it so bad after Given died––
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Mam Quotes in Sing, Unburied, Sing
The Sing, Unburied, Sing quotes below are all either spoken by Mam or refer to Mam. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5: Jojo
Quotes
She ain't Mam. She ain't Pop. She ain't never healed nothing or grown nothing in her life, and she don't know.
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Chapter 7: Leonie
Quotes
It feels good to be mean, to speak past the baby I can't hit and let that anger touch another. The one I'm never good enough for. Never Mama for. Just Leonie, a name wrapped around the same disappointed syllables I've heard from Mama, from Pop, even from Given, my whole fucking life.
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Chapter 11: Jojo
Quotes
I ain't never have the talent for it. Seeing the dead. I could read people, read the future or the past in they bodies. Know what was wrong or needed by their songs: in the plants, in the animals, too. But never saw the dead. Wanted it so bad after Given died––
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