Tagged with African-American

Twins Ysabel and Justin feel like a bomb has been dropped on their family when they learn that their father is transgender.

Lou and her Soul Brothers hit the road in this sequel to one of my favorite books. They are Black teen singers who are exploited by their manager, amass gambling debts, struggle with drugs, have romantic entanglements, and suffer car trouble.

This is one of the best literary novels I’ve read in recent memory. I’ve been too mentally fatigued to enjoy much but genre fiction lately. Lucky Third Girl is both an easy and satisfying read. It tells the story of three generations of African-American women: a woman scarred by a 1921 race riot in Tulsa, her daughter who went to Hollywood to be a movie star and instead became a Playboy bunny and blaxploitation bit player in the 1970s, and then her daughter, who aspire to be a filmmaker in present day New York.

Extraordinary, Ordinary People is a great title, but inapt for this book. Toward the end Rice quotes the Greatest American Hero theme song "Believe or not, I'm walking on air." (YouTube link) I think a more accurate title in the same vein, would have been "Believe it or not, it's just me." Whether you love or hate her (and I'm in the latter camp, though I'd probably say "fear/revile," rather than "hate"), you have to acknowledge that Rice is in no way ordinary. Most people know she excelled in piano, but did you know she was also a competitive figure skater in her adolescence? Ignoring her political accomplishments (or crimes, if that's how you see them), she is a superstar solely as an academic, having achieved the rank of full professor and provost at Stanford University before she was 40. Also, although Rice clearly loves and appreciates her deceased parents and extended family, this is not a memoir of family; it's an autobiography from birth (preceded with a little family history) to the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in favor of W. To me it's also interesting as a memoir of the Birmingham Black middle class.