By the Light of My Father's Smile

By the Light of My Father’s Smile (2005), a work of feminist fiction by Alice Walker, tells the story of two sisters who experience a startling sexual awakening on a holiday to Mexico. The book has been well received for its positive representation of female sexuality and empowerment, and for its timeless themes. Walker was the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her novel The Color Purple. She is a respected activist, intellectual, and teacher, and she campaigns against injustice and inequality.

By the Light of My Father’s Smile begins with a father seemingly looking down upon his family after his death. This concept of the afterlife stems from local folklore and religion crucial to the development of the novel’s narrative. Each member of the family narrates parts of the novel, ultimately building towards reconciliation.

The narrative jumps back many years, to when two women are still little girls. Susannah and her sister, Magdalena, are the daughters of respected African-American anthropologists studying the Mundo Indian tribe—a tribe that lives in the Sierras of Mexico. The tribespeople are reserved, living in a secluded area, but anthropologists believe they’re nearly extinct. They want to visit the last known location of these tribespeople to find out the truth.



For both Susannah and Magdalena, sex is sinful and not something they should engage in. They’re very far removed from their own sexuality. They’re also estranged from their father and don’t know how to reconnect with him. The novel runs along two trajectories—repairing their relationship with their father, and simultaneously finding joy and freedom in their sexuality.

The afterlife from which this father is speaking represents the beliefs of the Mundo people. They believe that their forefathers give blessings at different stages of a lunar cycle. For example, a sickle moon is a father smiling and offering his blessing for procreation and menstrual cycles. The Mundo people encourage each other to enjoy their sexuality instead of shying away from it.

It takes a while before we learn where Susannah and Magdalena’s negative attitude towards sex comes from. At first, the family is denied funding to study the Mundo tribe; they must find their own way to travel to Mexico. They pose as missionaries seeking to convert locals to Christianity. They must pretend to be pious, faithful, and of course, sexually pure.



Their father’s only release from this strict lifestyle is making love to his wife, their mother. This makes the girls think sex should be a secret and that it is something to be ashamed of. Matters only get worse when the girls become teenagers, and Magdalena starts sleeping with a local boy. Their father no longer pretends to be a missionary—he’s entirely devoted to the cause. When he discovers Magdalena is sleeping with someone outside of marriage, he beats her, and she refuses to speak to him again.

Susannah is devastated that her family has broken apart, and she doesn’t know how to fix it. Magdalena becomes obsessed with sex, indulging in it often. She gets an intimate piercing of a crucifix, to show how she feels about the church having so much power over her sexuality. Susannah despairs that Magdalena let this one relationship with a boy change her whole behavior and attitude towards sex, and the sisters stop speaking.

Susannah, however, finds her own means of expressing her sexuality as she discovers what it means to have a healthy, loving sexual relationship. She meets Pauline, who becomes her lover, and they have very luxurious, romantic encounters. Susannah discovers the spiritual joy to be found in lovemaking; she wishes her sister could experience the same thing.



Susannah’s main test is whether she can repair her relationship with her sister, because only then can they reconcile with their father. In the meantime, Susannah meets an assortment of strong, beautiful women who teach her the value of friendship and love. For example, Pauline escaped a loveless marriage and lived in poverty before running her own restaurant. Irene, a Greek dwarf, escaped the society that didn’t respect her. These women all teach Susannah valuable lessons.

The family is ultimately reconciled. In By the Light of My Father’s Smile, Walker explores the role sex and love play in societies across the globe, and its universal application. One must love and respect oneself, and stop being ashamed of one’s sexuality, to flourish and find meaningful, healthy relationships. The main criticism readers have of this book is that the characters are simple and insubstantial, though this seems to be deliberate, as this book places theme over individual characters.