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momwrex's review
4.0
Margo Jefferson is a few years older than me. I found her accounts of her life fascinating. She grew up with many more privileges than I did, but faced racism (which I, as a European-American, did not). The issues she faced as a female growing up in a social circle with many expectations of girls' behavior that I did not.
It was an interesting snapshot of how specifics of race, class and gender impact us as individuals.
It was an interesting snapshot of how specifics of race, class and gender impact us as individuals.
cokechukwu's review against another edition
2.0
“Being an Other, in America, teaches you to imagine what can’t imagine you.”
Memoirs are my least favorite kind of book. In my opinion, even more than novels do, they require a careful balance between what is said and what is left unsaid, between the moments that are emphasized and those that are elided. Most of the ones I have read so far don’t strike the right balance, and I think Jefferson’s is no exception. She had a lot to say about the history of the “Talented Tenth,” highlights in Black American history (exemplified by the achievements of Black stars of Hollywood, politics, business, etc.), and the social/political movements (civil rights, feminism) that shaped her life, but she was more circumspect about things more personal to her: not wanting marriage or children, her ascendence in journalism, her depression, and her relationships with her mother and sister, to name a few. She'd drop amazing lines (like the one quoted above) and then abruptly shift to abstraction and omission. As the book wore on, I found myself getting impatient and frustrated with the way Jefferson talked around instead of about her personal life, and how she seemed to back away whenever she veered too close to being deeply revealing.
I think Jefferson was trying to use the larger cultural-political-historical milieu to provide helpful context for the beliefs and practices of the Black elite in general and her Black elite family in particular. “The personal is political” and all that. Unfortunately, her personal story got lost in the litany of famous names and a detached, academic writing style. Maybe my expectations would have been set more appropriately if this had been marketed as a sociological study of the Black upper middle class. As a memoir, it left me pretty cold.
shereadsshedrinks's review against another edition
4.0
A dense read and took me much longer get to finish than I anticipated but man did it make me think.
anathema99's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
paradisecreated's review against another edition
4.5
I really enjoyed the wandering nature of this book, how it was somehow both linear and non-linear at the same time. Memoir and critique are interwoven in a way that feels true to the author but also to how we think back over our lives as we make sense of where we are now.
dominika_benmichael's review
3.0
This is a good book but not up my alley, a little too ethereal and poetic.
heidipolkissa82's review against another edition
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
archytas's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
"Civil rights. The New Left. Black Power. Feminism. Gay rights. To be remade so many times in one generation is surely a blessing. So I won’t trap myself into quantifying which matters more, race, or gender, or class. Race, gender, and class are basic elements of one’s living. Basic as utensils and clothing; always in use; always needing repairs and updates. Basic as body and breath, justice and reason, passion and imagination. So the question isn’t “Which matters most?,” it’s “How does each matter?” Gender, race, class; class, race, gender—your three in one and one in three."
In this memoir of growing up in the Black 'aspirational' classes in the 1950s and 1960s, Jefferson explores the very personal and yet very political topic of what it feels like to be at the intersection.
"There are days when I still want to dismantle this constructed self of mine. You did it so badly, I think. You lost so much time. And then I tell myself, so what? So what? Go on."
Jefferson's book brims with anecdotes, searching through her own memory for analysis. She covers the pain and the exhaustion of navigating white friendships, or needing to perform whiteness - which is a kind of class sensibility here. She writes also of the disappointment of discovering sexism in her heroes, Baldwin's majestic scorn for silly lady novelists. But Jefferson never makes her experiences feel as if trapped between - her Negroland girls experiences are rich, whole, of themselves.
In this memoir of growing up in the Black 'aspirational' classes in the 1950s and 1960s, Jefferson explores the very personal and yet very political topic of what it feels like to be at the intersection.
"There are days when I still want to dismantle this constructed self of mine. You did it so badly, I think. You lost so much time. And then I tell myself, so what? So what? Go on."
Jefferson's book brims with anecdotes, searching through her own memory for analysis. She covers the pain and the exhaustion of navigating white friendships, or needing to perform whiteness - which is a kind of class sensibility here. She writes also of the disappointment of discovering sexism in her heroes, Baldwin's majestic scorn for silly lady novelists. But Jefferson never makes her experiences feel as if trapped between - her Negroland girls experiences are rich, whole, of themselves.