A provocative memoir that goes to the heart of our American identity as Haizlip (owner of a public-relations firm), while searching for her mother's family—blacks who passed for whites- -confronts the deeply intertwined but often suppressed tensions between race and skin color. From childhood, Haizlip was aware of her mother's underlying melancholia, and as Margaret Taylor neared her 80th birthday, her daughter decided to find the family that the woman had lost when, at age four, she'd been left in the care of her darker-skinned relatives. The beautiful, alabaster-skinned Margaret had grown up to be ostracized because she was identified with the black side of the family—the side her own siblings chose to ignore by passing as white. ``I am a black woman, but many of you would never know it, my skin is as light as that of an average white person,'' Haizlip observes, raising the delicate question of pigmentocracy among blacks as she traces her family's roots. These include Martha Washington; an Irish grandmother; Native Americans; and a white indentured servant. The author notes that some geneticists claim that 95% of ``white'' Americans have varying degrees of black heritage, while 75% of African-Americans have at least one white ancestor. But Haizlip's memoir is more than a lesson in genealogy or race: It's also a family story, with memorable heroes, heroines, and villains. The author contrasts the Dickensian horrors of her mother's early life with the relatively idyllic childhood she enjoyed as the daughter of a prominent Baptist minister, and covers her own education at Wellesley; her marriage and professional life; and the happy outcome of her search—the reuniting of her mother and her remaining siblings. Finally, Haizlip admits to having ``grown less certain about the vagaries of race...more cautious in labeling or pigeonholing others.'' A moving tale of family sorrows and secrets—as well as a courageous and candid search for the truth, however painful it might be. (Sixteen pages of b&w photos—not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 24, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-79235-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
