Click on image to enlarge.
|
Pearl's Secret: A Black Man's Search for His White Family [Secure Microsoft Reader/Adobe]
eBook by Neil Henry
| |
Regular |
|
 |
|
Club |
| You Pay: |
$12.95 |
|
|
|
$11.01 |
| Micropay Rebate: |
10% |
|
|
|
10% |
| Cost After Rebate: |
$11.65 |
|
|
|
$9.91 |
| You Save: |
10.04% |
|
|
|
23.47% |
eBook Category: People
eBook Description:  Pearl's Secret is a remarkable autobiography and family story that combines elements of history, investigative reporting, and personal narrative in a riveting, true-to-life mystery. In it, Neil Henry--a black professor of journalism and former award-winning correspondent for the Washington Post--sets out to piece together the murky details of his family's past. His search for the white branch of his family becomes a deeply personal odyssey, one in which Henry deploys all of his journalistic skills to uncover the paper trail that leads to blood relations who have lived for more than a century on the opposite side of the color line. At the same time Henry gives a powerful and vivid account of his black family's rise to success over the twentieth century. Throughout the course of this gripping story the author reflects on the part that racism and racial ignorance have played in his daily life--from his boyhood in largely white Seattle to his current role as a parent and educator in California. The contemporary debate over the significance of Thomas Jefferson's longtime romantic relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, and recent DNA evidence that points to his role as the father of black descendants, have revealed the importance and volatility of the issue of dual-race legacies in American society. As Henry uncovers the dramatic history of his great-great-grandfather--a white English immigrant who fought as a Confederate officer in the Civil War, found success during Reconstruction as a Louisiana plantation owner, and enjoyed a long love affair with Henry's great-great-grandmother, a freed black slave--he grapples with an unsettling ambivalence about what he is trying to do. His straightforward, honest voice conveys both the pain and the exhilaration that his revelations bring him about himself, his family, and our society. In the book's stunning climax, the author finally meets his white kin, hears their own remarkable story of survival in America, and discovers a great deal about both the sting of racial prejudice as it is woven into the fabric of the nation, and his own proud identity as a teacher, father, and black American.
eBook Publisher: University of California Press, Published: 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: December 2002
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
| |
Available eBook Formats [Secure Microsoft Reader/Adobe - What's this?]: SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT [1.8 MB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More., SECURE ADOBE READER 7 FORMAT [2.6 MB]
Secure Adobe: Printing enabled, Read-aloud DISABLED
Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Adobe Acrobat Reader ISBN: 0520900006
Microsoft Reader ISBN: 05202225710520900014
 
"An engaging, emotional, genealogical adventure into ethnicity and self-acceptance. The author uses his investigative instincts to create an intriguing 'back to the future' page-turner as he searches for the white branch of his family tree. What sets this biography apart from other family biographies, like Alex Haley's Queen, is Henry's riveting personal narratives of his genealogical research and childhood accounts. Fascinating and compelling."--Library Journal (starred review)
"The stories of [Henry's] black family are stark, tender and moving in their honesty. Pearl's Secret is more than a genealogical mystery; it is a memoir, a family history, and the story of one man trying to make a little more sense of the racial landscape we all find ourselves in. In its attempt to record two related families' journeys since slavery, and to reach a deeper understanding of America itself, the book is victorious."--Washington Post Book World "Readers who enjoyed James McBride's The Color of Water may find Henry's tale equally compelling."--Publishers Weekly "A genealogical detective story wrapped in a complex memoir about race."--USA Today "In his new book, Henry tells the absorbing story of his two families: the white, landowning Beaumonts-who were wiped out by the boll weevil and later sank into poverty-and the descendants of Laura, who prospered among the black bougeoisie of St. Louis."--Washington City Paper "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 "[Henry's] tale deftly balances candor and objectivity, reeling in the reader with vivid reportage and nonthreatening discourse. But it soon produces layers of emotions worthy of any drama."--Smithsonian Magazine "An intensely intimate autobiography ... a heartfelt, candid and painstakingly written essay of one man's search for answers to his own family's racial enigmas. As such, it is a creditable contribution to solving the puzzle of emotions and facts that continue to divide people and nations."--Black Issues Book Review
|
)
