princeton reads
The Color of Water
The Color of Water
 As a boy in Brooklyn’s Red Hook projects, James
McBride knew his mother was different. But when he
asked about it, she’d simply say, “I’m
light-skinned.” Later, he wondered if he was
different, too, and asked his mother whether he was
black or white. “You’re a human being,” she
snapped. “Educate yourself or you’ll be
a nobody!” And, when James asked what color God
was, she said, “God is the color of water.”… As
an adult, McBride finally persuaded his mother to tell
her story - the story of a rabbi’s daughter,
born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled to
Harlem, married a black man, founded a Baptist church,
and put twelve children through college. The Color
of Water is James McBride’s tribute to his remarkable,
eccentric, determined mother - and an eloquent exploration
of what family really means. " Complex and moving...suffused with issues of race, religion and identity. Yet those issues, so much a part of their lives and stories, are not central. The triumph of the book - and of their lives - is that race and religion are transcended in these interwoven histories by family, love, the sheer force of a mother's will and her unshakable insistence that only two things really matter: school and church...It is her voice - unique, incisive, at once unsparing and ironic - that is dominant in this paired history, and its richest contribution... The two stories, son's and mother's, beautifully juxtaposed, strike a graceful note at a time of racial polarization." -The New York Times Book Review " This moving and unforgettable memoir need to be read by people of all colors and faiths." -Publishers Weekly |
