We will discuss The Color of Water by James McBride on November 13, 2018.
Touches readers of all
colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race
and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.
Who
is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive
about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black
children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his
mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant
and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His
White Mother.
The son of a black minister and a woman who would
not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos"
with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook,
Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of
pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events,
sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded
good grades and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his
mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached
thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and
long-buried pain.
In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his
mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice,
recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant
Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara
Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family
emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a
small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor
and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her
fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the
rest of the family and life she abandoned.
At seventeen, after
fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black
minister and founded the all-black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in
her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride
taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's
values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting
overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and
discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through
graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work
from Temple University.
Interspersed throughout his mother's
compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own
experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs
and violence, and his eventual self-realization and professional
success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid
portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a
lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.
-Goodreads
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