Negroland: A Memoir

Negroland: A Memoir

Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography

AÂ NEW YORK TIMESÂ BESTSELLER
New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2015
New York Times: Dwight Garnerâ€™s Best Books of 2015
Washington Post: 10 Best Books of 2015
Los Angeles Times: 31 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015
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TIME Best Books of 2015

At once incendiary and icy, mischievous and provocative, celebratory and elegiacâ€”here is a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, and American culture through the prism of the authorâ€™s rarefied upbringing and education among a black elite concerned with distancing itself from whites and the black generality while tirelessly measuring itself against both.
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Born in upper-crust black Chicagoâ€”her father was for years head of pediatrics at Provident, at the time the nationâ€™s oldest black hospital; her mother was a socialiteâ€”Margo Jefferson has spent most of her life among (call them what you will) the colored aristocracy, the colored elite, the blue-vein society. Since the nineteenth century they have stood apart, these inhabitants of Negroland, â€œa small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty.â€
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Reckoning with the strictures and demands of Negroland at crucial historical momentsâ€”the civil rights movement, the dawn of feminism, the fallacy of postracial Americaâ€”Jefferson brilliantly charts the twists and turns of a life informed by psychological and moral contradictions. Aware as it is of heart-wrenching despair and depression, this book is a triumphant paean to the grace of perseverance.

(With 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.)

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Vintage
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-09-08
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Vintage
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-09-08
Format	Kindle eBook

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