About this title: Two months before he died of cancer, renowned literary critic Anatole Broyard called his grown son and daughter to his side, intending to reveal a secret he'd kept all their lives and most of his own: he was black. But even as he lay dying, the truth was too diffi cult for him to share, and it was his wife who told Bliss Broyard that her WASPy, ...
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Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Date Published: 2008-09-09
ISBN-13:9780316008068ISBN:0316008060
Description: Good. Spine and upper corner of front cover creased. Some edge wear. NOT an ex-library book; no publisher's remainder marks. Military (APO/FPO) orders are welcomed-Thank you for your service. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Date Published: 2007-09-27
ISBN-13:9780316163507ISBN:0316163503
Description: Very Good. Hardback w/DJ, Minor cover wear, Pages clean SHIPPED IMMEDIATELY: We ship every business day with the most careful packaging you'll find. Choose Expedited Shipping for delivery within 2-5 business days. (Standard Shipping may take 2-4 weeks for delivery) GUARANTEED: Your satisfaction is always assured with BobsNeatBooks. Our items are carefully inspected and described and may be returned for any reason within 7 days. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780316163507ISBN:0316163503
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 514 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780316008068ISBN:0316008060
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Tight binding with clean text. Has reading group guide. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 544 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First edition. Illustrated.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780316163507ISBN:0316163503
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Book as new. Dj has very slight edgewear. First edition. No markings or spine creasing. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 514 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Octavo, softcover, hint of wear to cover else near fine in black and white pictorial wraps. A father's stunning secret sparks a life-transforming journey in this story of race, identity, and the American dream. Broyard'sparents, New Orleans Creoles, had moved to Brooklyn and began to pass as white in order to get work, he had learned to conceal his racial identity. As he grew older and entered the ranks of the New York literary elite, he maintained the facade. Now his daughter Bliss tries to ... read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Date Published: 2008-09-09
ISBN-13:9780316008068ISBN:0316008060
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780316008068. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780316008068ISBN:0316008060
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: book Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown & Co
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9780316163507ISBN:0316163503
Description: Brand New. Brand new. Never read or owned. May have a remainder mark. 514 pages. 9.50 x 6.30 x 1.50 in. 28.0 oz. The daughter of the late literary critic Anatole Broyard recounts her father's startling deathbed revelation about his Creole heritage that was hidden by his own parents in order to secure work, a confession the author investigated during a visit to unknown family members in New Orleans. 40, 000 first printing. Shortly before the death of her father, the noted critic Anatole Broyard ... read more
"Bliss Broyard, daughter of New York Times literary critic Anatole Broyard, discovered as an adult that her father passed as white during his adult life. But why did he keep his race a secret even into the 1990s when surely it didn't matter anymore? Why did he keep his young adult children away from their black extended family after it didn't matter anymore? The answer may be that his black family was resentful of his 'passing' as white and ignoring them for so many years."
"Bliss Broyard has spent years researching the history of her father's Creole family in an attempt to understand her racial heritage. While his mixed racial background was known to many, he did not tell his children until very shortly before his death. This book was a good follow up to the history and historical fiction books I read about women who lived in St Augustine this summer, adding more depth and perspective to the sociology of race. I found Bliss not always insightful. Her father in the end is an unappealing self absorbed man. Her skills at research are excellent, and the diverse experiences and perspectives of the family members she uncovers all over the US are fascinating."
"Bliss Broyard's story - and her father's - is a captivating one in part because it deals with two of the most American things: race and reinvention. It starts well, urgently, but after all that family history in the middle some of the narrative drive fades, and in the end I felt that it could have been much shorter and more forceful. But Bliss' energy, and her unwillingness to provide easy answers or conclusions, makes up for some, if not all, of the book's shortcomings."
"The author's father was Anatole Broyard, the former editor of the NYTimes Book Review. He wrote about his illness at the end of his life in a one page article in the NYTimes magazine and a quote from that piece propelled me through my thesis. I read more of his work and liked it less, but that one article was fabulous. She and her brother discovered that their father's family was African American or "Black" just before he died. As a reader, you extrapolate that he had cut off relations with them because he was "passing" as white, in his adult life. That explanation is too simple and this book explores the complexities of identity and group membership and who gets to decide what a person is, and what it means to identify or not with a partiuclar group. His family were Creole from Louisiana, though he grew up in Brooklyn, and they had a range of shades, coming from a number of groups- Indian, Black, White, but the times required people to be clearly in one group or another and their were huge economic consequences with identifying as black. The dad was born in 1920, a year before my father, while Jim Crow reigned in the south (and he was born in New Orleans). It is a fascinating and at times wrenching book. The daughter has done a careful and deeply thoughtful piece of work. some of it is hard to read, but it is worth reading. It is equally about growing up, and parent-child relationships in adulthood, and how they are negotiated or not, and the huge personal cost to cutting of relations with one's family. It explores memory and meaning, and how our families' stories stay with us, somehow, now matter how our parents attempt to protect us."
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