Non-Fiction

25

As a boy in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects, James McBride knew his mother was different. But when he asked about it, she’d simply say, "I’m light-skinned.”. Later he wondered if he was different, too, and asked his mother if he was black or white. "You’re a human being,” she snapped. "Educated yourself or you’ll be nobody!”. And when James asked what color God was, she said, "God is the color of water”...As an adult, McBride finally persuaded his mother to tell her story - the story of a rabbi’s daughter, born in Poland and raised in the south, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a baptist church, and put twelve children through college. The Color of Water is James McBride’s tribute to his remarkable, eccentric, determined mother - and an eloquent exploration of what family really means.

2018-06-26 16:49:42