296 records matched your query       

Author:

Straight, Susan, author.

Title:

In the country of women : a memoir / Susan Straight.

Publisher:

Catapult,

Copyright Date:

2019

Description:

xviii, 363 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Subject:

Straight, Susan.
Straight, Susan--Family.
Authors, American--Biography.
Women authors--Biography.
Autobiographies.

Contents:

Acknowledgements The Work of Women - Evaporation and Memory, white House #3 -- The First Bullet ; The Dance ; The Country Squire ; Nurse-in-Charge ; Hey Now ; Olympia - One Can Could Get You Pregnant ; Daisy Belle ; Driveway #1 - The First Love Letter -- Part II. Castas ; Mulato ; The Second Bullet ; Fruitful ; The Toast ; Fruitful #2 -- Part III. Run the World ; Wild Things ; Pig ; The Santa Ana River ; A Secondhand Lonely ; Dew Point - Pack of Four ; Love Strands ; Crosses and Missions ; Coach - Driveway #2 ; The Batmobile ; The Yard Couch ; Grizzly ; Nine ; Al Green - Driveway #1, The Second Love Letter ; Travels with My Ex in the Time of Revenue -- Part IV. Switzerland, Loveland, Cuddlyland ; Bring Me Your Smartest Girl ; Kin - White House #1 ; A Place of Style and Refuge - White House #2 ; Letter to My Nephew - Our Dungeon Shook (After James Baldwin) ; American Human Not Interested ; Braid/Züpfe ; Ancestry ; Saphina ; The Work of Women - Evaporation and Memory, white House #3 -- Acknowledgements

Summary:

"In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self-proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close-knit Sims family, Straight--and eventually her three daughters--heard for decades the stories of Dwayne's female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post-slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight's mother-in-law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan's family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward--from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California. A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan--those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, "The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival." In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women." -- from Jacket.

ISBN:

1948226227
9781948226226

OCLC:

(OCoLC)1083715650

Locations:

DFPC353 -- Ackley Public Library (Ackley)

GBPF771 -- Ankeny Kirkendall Public Library (Ankeny)

FYPI314 -- Dubuque County Library - Asbury Branch (Asbury)

TCPG826 -- Bettendorf Public Library Information Center (Bettendorf)

CLPC792 -- Brooklyn Public Library (Brooklyn)

KSPG296 -- Burlington Public Library (Burlington)

PNAX964 -- Northeast Iowa Community College Library - Calmar (Calmar)

SAPG074 -- Cedar Falls Public Library (Cedar Falls)

TYPH572 -- Cedar Rapids Public Library (Cedar Rapids)

YXPB162 -- Clarence Public Library (Edna Zybell Memorial Library) (Clarence)

BAPH771 -- Des Moines Public Library (Des Moines)

TSPC862 -- Norma Anders Public Library (Dysart)

ALPE516 -- Fairfield Public Library (Fairfield)

CAPH522 -- Iowa City Public Library (Iowa City)

GYPE631 -- Knoxville Public Library (Knoxville)

YEPF572 -- Marion Public Library (Marion)

GUPF501 -- Newton Public Library (Newton)

GZPE631 -- Pella Public Library (Pella)

LAPH975 -- Sioux City Public Library (Sioux City)