Reviews

Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson

michellekirkbride's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

ifyouhappentoremember's review against another edition

3.0

Margo Jefferson takes readers into the world of the black elite of the US. These are a group of African-Americans who exemplify the 'talented tenth'; this society is a group of highly educated and generationally wealthy families that exists outside of the white world and distances itself from the general Black population. This is a very interesting topic, and the author is someone who grew up in this world.

Unfortunately, I found this book, at times, to be meandering. Many topics are covered but not enough space is given to flesh them out.

julieveg's review against another edition

I heard this author on NPR and thought the book sounded interesting. I found the writing to be self-conscious and the book pretentious.

stevenyenzer's review against another edition

2.0

This book was such a disappointment. Jefferson's prose is self-indulgent and verbose in the style of most academic writing (and I realize my own bias here). She seems determined to augment every adjective with two more for a nice symmetrical, rhythmic, irritating reading experience. Her descriptions of her childhood were interesting, and I was interested in what she had to say, but the way she said it was so purposefully arch that I could barely finish.

hc21's review against another edition

3.0

A wandering and lyrical memoir. Very interesting, especially to those who know Hyde Park.

gleefulreader's review against another edition

5.0

Margo Jefferson's memoir is her story of growing up in an affluent and privileged Black family in Chicago during the decades of change post-WWII. However, it is more than simply a straightforward history - it is a meandering examination of race and gender, of individuality and conformity. Jefferson is clear-eyed and lucid about the challenge of aspiring and working desperately to fit in and be accepted by the White community - through emulation of White habits and lifestyles while denying and tamping down anything that marks you as too "Black" - and yet still being subject to discrimination and outright scorn. She describes her own confusion and dissonance at being neither White, nor in many ways, Black, of always being an outsider, an Other. If the book meanders occasionally, it can be forgiven as there is much to absorb here, with no clear answers. I found myself for the first time in years with a highlighter at hand, marking passages I wished to remember. This is definitely a book I will be re-reading.

ridgewaygirl's review against another edition

4.0

Margo Jefferson's memoir of growing up affluent and African American is a fascinating and illuminating look at a world that is both similar and very different to my own. Jefferson's father was a respected pediatrician and she and her sister grew up in private schools and clubs, wearing expensive clothes, but constantly reminded of their otherness in a world (Chicago in the middle of the last century) that would allow a limited and select number of African Americans into their white, liberal enclaves, but with a certain amount of discomfort. Jefferson grew up with the idea of needing to respectable, to behave so perfectly as to overcome the ideas white people had of black people. Then, as a teenager and adult, Jefferson experiences the changes wrought by the sixties, from the Civil Rights Act to feminism as she forges a career as a journalist.

Negroland discusses the black experience and the effects of racism from a world where it was more subtle. The mothers who are overly formal with her mother, the homes where she isn't invited for playdates, the attention paid to skin tones and hair textures and the constant need to prove themselves worthy of living in a white world by being better by orders of magnitude than her peers. Jefferson has the same experiences every other girl has; self-consciousness about wearing glasses, crushes on cute boys, having a best friend. She writes with great honesty about her failings and the dreams she had.

Jefferson writes with an admirable clarity and complexity about the world she grew up in and about her adult life. That this book was so easy to read in no way dilutes the story she tells.

sujuv's review against another edition

4.0

Would probably give this more like a 3 1/2 if Goodreads allowed such a thing, only because I found certain portions of the book less involving than others. But the parts I did find involving - which is the larger part, for sure - was fascinating. Part a memoir of growing up among the Black elite, part a history of that elite, part an interrogation of that elite, as well as a bit of literary criticism (specifically of Little Women, which I quite enjoyed), this book led me into a fascinating world and Jefferson is an honest and empathetic guide. And it's short. Which is always nice :)

brighteyes1178's review against another edition

2.0

I'm disappointed in this book - I was looking forward to reading it, a prize-winner and memoir of the African-American upper class, a rumination on the intersection of race, class, and gender... This is not so much a memoir as much as a ramble through everything the author has read and learned about black culture. It felt like reading a professor's lecture at first and when she did get to the personal, finally, it felt... cold. I want a memoir to have some heart and I felt like Margo Jefferson was often hiding hers, talking about issues impersonally and distantly instead of making me feel it.

aoosterwyk's review against another edition

4.0

This is an articulate and brave memoir in which the author shares her experiences growing up black and privileged in Chicago during the 50s and 60s. She is a journalist who does not shy away from the hard questions and difficult analysis of how race influences options, choices, and outcomes for herself and others.