The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
From the bestselling author of Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award-winning The Good Lord Bird The modern classic that spent more than two years on The New York Times bestseller list and that Oprah.com calls one of the best memoirs of a generation.
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades, and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.
In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned.
At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all- black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University.
Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self- realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades, and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion--and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.
In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned.
At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all- black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college--and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University.
Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self- realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.
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Community Reviews
This is a beautifully written memoir that reveals perhaps more than anything else the immense power of parents to nurture their children -- or to make them run for the hills, or in this case, Harlem.
Author James McBride was the eighth of 12 children born to Ruth McBride Jordan, who was born Ruchel Dwarja Zylska in Poland in 1921. In the U.S., she became Rachel Deborah Shilsky, and after renouncing her Orthodox Jewish past and her abusive, cruel father, she chose for her new community and family the church-going black community in Harlem.
"What always struck me about black folks was that every Sunday they'd get dressed up so clean for church I wouldn't recognize them. I liked that. They seemed to have such a purpose come Sunday morning. Their families were together and although they were poor, they seemed happy. Tateh hated black people," Ruchel-Rachel-Ruth told her son.
Ruth McBride tried to hide her whiteness and certainly her Jewishness from her children. When asked about her skin color, she'd just say, "I'm light-skinned." It wasn't till McBride was in college and needed his mother's maiden name for a form that he had to force the information out of her: Her mother's maiden name was the undeniably Jewish-sounding name "Shilsky." (How anyone can grow up to adulthood not knowing a mother's unmarried name is mysterious.)
McBride's biological father died before he was born, at only 45, from cancer. And his stepfather, whom he clearly loved, also died when the author was only 14 -- a dangerous age for a boy to become fatherless. Remarkably, though so poor that the children literally went hungry on occasion, their clothes from Goodwill, the Jewish mother that was Ruth McBride sent all 12 children to college, and most went to graduate school.
As a Jew, it is painful to read how another Jew turned to Christianity because of the lack of warmth or the feeling of a personal connection to a loving God that too often is more accessible in the church than in synagogue. It should not be this way, but currently it often is. Desperately missing that sense that God was real and that love was real, Ruth Shilsky found it with two good black men and in a church community, where the emotions she had to bottle up for so long were welcomed. She lived with a great deal of understandable guilt for having walked away from her mother and sister, though, particularly because her mother, whom she loved very much, was dying at the time. Ruth was ostracized by the rest of the family for this.
The author struggled greatly to come to terms with his mysterious, Jewish-Christian, white and black background. As a teen he flirted with drugs and crime, but straightened out: Loving his mother and fearing her wrath, he didn't dare not to! Finding his own sense of self as man of mixed religious and mixed race background was not easy, and he had to deal with ongoing social awkwardness and occasional racism along the way.
All in all, this memoir speaks poignantly to the need for people to feel connection, and love, and yes, God.
Author James McBride was the eighth of 12 children born to Ruth McBride Jordan, who was born Ruchel Dwarja Zylska in Poland in 1921. In the U.S., she became Rachel Deborah Shilsky, and after renouncing her Orthodox Jewish past and her abusive, cruel father, she chose for her new community and family the church-going black community in Harlem.
"What always struck me about black folks was that every Sunday they'd get dressed up so clean for church I wouldn't recognize them. I liked that. They seemed to have such a purpose come Sunday morning. Their families were together and although they were poor, they seemed happy. Tateh hated black people," Ruchel-Rachel-Ruth told her son.
Ruth McBride tried to hide her whiteness and certainly her Jewishness from her children. When asked about her skin color, she'd just say, "I'm light-skinned." It wasn't till McBride was in college and needed his mother's maiden name for a form that he had to force the information out of her: Her mother's maiden name was the undeniably Jewish-sounding name "Shilsky." (How anyone can grow up to adulthood not knowing a mother's unmarried name is mysterious.)
McBride's biological father died before he was born, at only 45, from cancer. And his stepfather, whom he clearly loved, also died when the author was only 14 -- a dangerous age for a boy to become fatherless. Remarkably, though so poor that the children literally went hungry on occasion, their clothes from Goodwill, the Jewish mother that was Ruth McBride sent all 12 children to college, and most went to graduate school.
As a Jew, it is painful to read how another Jew turned to Christianity because of the lack of warmth or the feeling of a personal connection to a loving God that too often is more accessible in the church than in synagogue. It should not be this way, but currently it often is. Desperately missing that sense that God was real and that love was real, Ruth Shilsky found it with two good black men and in a church community, where the emotions she had to bottle up for so long were welcomed. She lived with a great deal of understandable guilt for having walked away from her mother and sister, though, particularly because her mother, whom she loved very much, was dying at the time. Ruth was ostracized by the rest of the family for this.
The author struggled greatly to come to terms with his mysterious, Jewish-Christian, white and black background. As a teen he flirted with drugs and crime, but straightened out: Loving his mother and fearing her wrath, he didn't dare not to! Finding his own sense of self as man of mixed religious and mixed race background was not easy, and he had to deal with ongoing social awkwardness and occasional racism along the way.
All in all, this memoir speaks poignantly to the need for people to feel connection, and love, and yes, God.
I had actually wanted to read this back when it was big, but never did. Anyway, we had it sitting on the shelf, and it came to mind when I was trying to think of something easy (but not too easy) to read to help me out of the reading slump I've been in. Turned out to be a pretty good book for it, actually. It's a memoir, which I'm discovering (against everything I'd ever suspected) to be a genre I'm really drawn to. And it has an engaging—though not overly serious—tone throughout.
The subtitle of the book is "A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother." James McBride is—sure enough—a black man who grew up with what he assumed to be a WASP mother. Which, growing up in Harlem during the Civil Rights era, would be drama enough. But then as an adult he gradually came to realize that his mother was actually a Polish-born Jewish woman. She had shed her Judaism, and an entire life along with it, many years before he was born. This book essentially tells the story of his quest to learn about that abandoned life, and along the way it's a fairly typical memoir of growing up. Or rather, it's two of them—in alternating chapters, he intertwines his own story with that of his mother.
Still, even if they are typical, these two stories are not uninteresting. McBride has a somewhat unique take on the racial tensions & struggles that surrounded him as he came of age. And his mother's story is both heartbreaking and triumphant, though one can imagine it being better told.
There's a lot to think about here, though I'm sure the story is even more complex than this telling of it. Still, worth reading.
The subtitle of the book is "A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother." James McBride is—sure enough—a black man who grew up with what he assumed to be a WASP mother. Which, growing up in Harlem during the Civil Rights era, would be drama enough. But then as an adult he gradually came to realize that his mother was actually a Polish-born Jewish woman. She had shed her Judaism, and an entire life along with it, many years before he was born. This book essentially tells the story of his quest to learn about that abandoned life, and along the way it's a fairly typical memoir of growing up. Or rather, it's two of them—in alternating chapters, he intertwines his own story with that of his mother.
Still, even if they are typical, these two stories are not uninteresting. McBride has a somewhat unique take on the racial tensions & struggles that surrounded him as he came of age. And his mother's story is both heartbreaking and triumphant, though one can imagine it being better told.
There's a lot to think about here, though I'm sure the story is even more complex than this telling of it. Still, worth reading.
Our book club had not read this book, and as a former teacher of 11th grade English our curriculum included this book as one that dealt with our overarching themes for that grade which was Insiders and Outsiders. Being familiar with the dual narrative structure I quickly fell in love with the character of Ruth from the start. Her optimism, determination to get away from her domineering rabbi father and her breaking away from her Jewish religion to find solace in the arms of the Christian faith was heartwarming. She lived life on life's terms, brought up 12 children to be productive citizens when the world would have consigned her to a life of poverty and her children to turn to the streets. But her faith and her belief in the power of education gave Ruth the backbone to power on through her circumstances. Her interracial marriages made her an outsider in the white world and the black community provided her and her children a safe space. Every one of the book club members had a positive reaction to the book, loved the writing style ofJames McBride and found the book full of hope.
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