Negroland: A Memoir

Margo Jefferson's childhood house had a simple motto: "Achievement. Invulnerability. Comportment." Her family belonged to Chicago's black aristocracy. Her father was the chief doctor at Provident Hospital, America's oldest black hospital, and her mother was a socialite. They considered themselves as a "Third Race" standing between the masses of Negroes and all sorts of Caucasians. Life was governed by rigid rules of behavior and femininity. Jefferson describes the severe emotional load of growing up believing she was a spokesman for her race, as well as persistent, scary suicide thoughts.

In 1995, Jefferson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her book reviews in The New York Times. "Negroland" is a long-form of critique that moves from a history of socioeconomic class to a detailed analysis of her mother's emotions; the information is measured in brow arches of "three to four millimeters".

The prose is blunt and evasive, sensuous and ascetic, doubting and resolute — and above all beautifully skeptical of the genre, of the memoir’s conventions, clichés and limits. “How do you adapt your singular, willful self to so much history and myth? So much glory, banality, honor and betrayal?” she asks. This shape-shifting, form-shattering book carves one path forward.

Detailed information:

Author: Margo Jefferson

Language: English
Genre: Memoir

Link to read: www.goodreads.com/book/show/24040176-negroland