Description
Book SynopsisFinalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction
A memoir of astonishing delicacy and strength about race and physical beauty.
Trade Review"A refreshing debut memoir about growing up in between races and in between families." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Fresh, honest, and important." -- Publishers Weekly
"Not since
The Color of Water have the complexities and the blessings of a multiracial lineage been explored so lovingly and elegantly, yet so dramatically and honestly. You will fall in love with Ragusa and all the members of her family, as this child of two Harlems—both African American and Italian American—learns the mysteries of both strands of her past. The best memoir I’ve read in years." -- Louise DeSalvo, author of Crazy in the Kitchen and Writing as a Way of Healing
"Think of
The Woman Warrior,
The Liar's Club, and
Wide Sargasso Sea, then add an entirely new voice born out of New York’s Harlem and Sicily’s Palermo. Raucous, hilarious, heartbreaking, and luscious, Ragusa’s work is destined to take its rightful place alongside our most powerful books." -- Gina Barreca, author of Babes in Boyland and editor of Don’t Tell Mama:
"Kym Ragusa’s brave and engaging book is beautifully written, a thoroughly good read from beginning to end. From the story of a sometimes painful, conflicted past, she has created a testament to an American future, proud of its multicultural history and ready to hold all our different lives within its borders." -- Hettie Jones, author of How I Became Hettie Jones
"Kym Ragusa stands bravely and with great grace in the troubled space between East and West Harlem, Italian and Black, to tell us about the pain of this in-between place and its challenges and beauty. What an extraordinary book! Not since Piri Thomas’s
Down These Mean Streets has this world between been described so courageously and with such insight. I read this with a deep sense of moral urgency, convinced that the life Ragusa made for herself with her grandmothers could be the ground of hope for the city itself." -- Robert Orsi, author of The Madonna of 115th Street
