I found this memoir a very hard book to read. Part of it stems from the fact that the book jacket claims that the story is told "without an ounce of malice". Yet, to me, it seems to seethe with a hidden rage. To be sure, the author has some reasons to harbor anger, given that her fundamentalist parents hardly exhibit any of the Christian love that the faith admonishes its adherents to show, and a racism only a little less overt than pre civil rights South that is exhibited to her adopted African-American brother.
The text of the first part of the book centers in the early 80's in Lafayette, Indiana. The two central characters being the author and her black sibling, David. Right off the bat they are harrassed by a group of racist boys while browsing a local cemetary. The story moves on from there as she describes how she approached the new surroundings attending a new school. She befriends a couple of outsiders like herself and gradually grows a little distant from her brother. Mostly to avoid the racism that accompanies her being known as "that black boy's sister."
What is, by the book jacket, referred to as candor, really forces itself into the open with the events that occur when her older brother, also an adopted African-American, shows up. He is pretty much portrayed as a malcontent and borderline, if not outright, hoodlum. Some of the scenes when Jerome is present are extremely straight-forward and hard to take in.
My real problems with the book concern the sexuality of this young girl. (She is 16 at the time of the events.) I'm far from a prude, (else I wouldn't have picked up the book in the first place), but it was here where I had to leave off completing the book. It is a good book as far as its merits on writing. The author does have an engaging style. But if you are squeamish at having descriptions of rape, attempted rape, and willing sex acts descibed to you, (although not pornographic)you might want to skip this one.
Rate this one 4½ stars
Winthrop
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