Black Is the Body
Books | Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs
4
Emily Bernard
“Blackness is an art, not a science. It is a paradox: intangible and visceral; a situation and a story. It is the thread that connects these essays, but its significance as an experience emerges randomly, unpredictably. . . . Race is the story of my life, and therefore black is the body of this book.” In these twelve deeply personal, connected essays, Bernard details the experience of growing up black in the south with a family name inherited from a white man, surviving a random stabbing at a New Haven coffee shop, marrying a white man from the North and bringing him home to her family, adopting two children from Ethiopia, and living and teaching in a primarily white New England college town. Each of these essays sets out to discover a new way of talking about race and of telling the truth as the author has lived it. "Black Is the Body is one of the most beautiful, elegant memoirs I've ever read. It's about race, it's about womanhood, it's about friendship, it's about a life of the mind, and also a life of the body. But more than anything, it's about love. I can't praise Emily Bernard enough for what she has created in these pages." --Elizabeth GilbertWINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD PRIZE FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PROSENAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND KIRKUS REVIEWSONE OF MAUREEN CORRIGAN'S 10 UNPUTDOWNABLE READS OF THE YEAR
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More Details:
Author
Emily Bernard
Pages
240
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published Date
2019-01-29
ISBN
0451493036 9780451493033
Community ReviewsSee all
"I loved the many different and unique perspectives Emily Bernard offered. My biggest struggle was that the storytelling didn't pull me in like other similar books have. It's definitely still a book worth reading!"
Julie Brough
"Never have I felt more disconnected from an author who I seemingly would and should feel a connection with. Every time I started a essay and thought “ahh, here comes the connection”, she would veer off into the almost hero worship of her husband (which I get your man is supposed to be your everything and all that, but he seems to be her everything mainly because of what he is not *insert obvious here*). The fact that on more than one occasion she refers to her blackness as a condition, as if it is something that can be cured and treated as opposed to the glorious gift that natural selection bestowed upon her, is problematic for me when she then conversely relates her encounters of being while black. Hold on little sister, you don’t get to bemoan and disown, either you’re all in or your not. I really wanted to like this collection. Instead I’m left with a feeling of cynicism that I hate feeling towards another sister."
Liz Thurman