Mon, Aug 10
|Zoom
Core Connects RI Book Group
The Color Of Water is a fascinating, superbly written memoir. A New York Times bestseller for two years. To date it has sold more than 2.1 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 16 languages. It tells the story of James McBride and his white, Jewish mother Ruth.
Time & Location
Aug 10, 2020, 7:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Zoom
Guests
About the Event
The modern classic that Oprah calls one of the best memoirs of a generation. More than two years on The New York Times bestseller list. 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. 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. At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister . "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children. Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child. 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.
Please join us as we discuss identity, race, belonging, family, love and resiliency.
Elissa Felder is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Core Connects RI Book Group
Time: Aug 10, 2020 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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Meeting ID: 875 6875 0617
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