Description
Book SynopsisAn autobiography and family story of Neil Henry, a black professor of journalism and former award-winning correspondent for the Washington Post. It sets out to piece together the murky details of his family's past. It gives an account of his black family's rise to success over the twentieth century.
Trade Review"As a former Washington Post journalist, Neil Henry knows how to grip the attention of his readers. The framework of this moving book is his quest as a black intellectual to find the descendants of his great-great-grandfather, an English immigrant to Louisiana who, like many of his time, had a relationship with a freed slave. The book hits hard as a scorching account of prejudice, endeavour and the continuing emotional cost of striving for success. The racial history may be peculiar to America but this compelling personal odyssey, with its sensitive author by turns chippy and generous, has universal lessons."-Sunday Times of London "A genealogical detective story wrapped in a complex memoir about race."-USA Today "Not since Roots has an African-American traveled as deeply into foreign territory in search of his family history as Neil Henry does in Pearl's Secret, in which Henry recounts his journey to the doorstep of his white cousins. Blending genres-history, memoir, investigation-Henry peppers his genealogical quest with detail only a veteran journalist could provide Yet he is at his best when he abandons objectivity and reveals the emotional toll of finding his white relatives."-Brill's Content
Table of ContentsCONTENTS Prelude PART ONE: Search 1. Clues in Microfilm 2. Road Maps 3. Natchez 4. Jim Crow's Shadow PART TWO: Discovery 5. The Chase 6. 'Welcome to the Family' 7. Tenth Man Classic Acknowledgments
