The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey [Hardcover]

Toi Derricotte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1997

The poet Toi Derricotte began this journal over 20 years ago when she, a light-skinned black woman, moved into an all white area near New York City. The author describes encounters with family, neighbours, friends and colleagues where she is forced to question what it means to be a black woman living in a racially divided world. It is also a book about uncovering the denied and shameful aspects of the self, and the author's journey towards self-acceptance.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Realizing that her light skin and "good hair" conspired to give her a unique, unasked-for perspective on the racial divide in the United States, African American poet Toi Derricotte inscribed her anguish in two decades' worth of journal entries. The Black Notebooks records countless moments when Derricotte was showered with offhand entitlements and racist confidences by whites who assumed she, too, was white. She speaks ambivalently of milking such moments, deliberately making end runs around her dark-skinned husband, Bruce, while looking for a home in an all-white suburb or hoping for a decent hotel room. Derricotte talks bluntly, too, of a self-loathing that accompanies being black in America and of not being "black enough." Her honest, angry, painful truth-telling veers into self-absorption and repetition, but perhaps that's fitting: racism hammers away at people in tiny and huge events repeated day after day. Says Derricotte, "My skin causes certain problems continuously, problems that open the issue of racism over and over like a wound."

From Library Journal

A black woman whose light skin has allowed her to pass for white, poet/ professor Derricotte speaks of her tormented struggles with her racial identity.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 205 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1ST edition (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393045447
• ISBN-13: 978-0393045444
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dark, wrenching story of woman tortured by her color, September 15, 2001

By 

Dera R Williams (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey (Hardcover)

It took me longer than usual to finish a book of this size. Inside of this little book was heart wrenching anguish and I just could not read it through without interruptions, reading other things and giving myself a rest.
Is Ms. Derracotte a victim of the tragic mulatto syndrome or is some of her anguish of her own making?

Coming from an upper class African American family that has kept the blood line "light and bright" for generations, the author's journey as a white- looking black woman comes to a climax when she moves to an all-white exclusive neighborhood in New York. It's not that they don't want her there, they just don't want her trying to assimilate into their way of life. The fact that she conducted the initial business of purchasing the house without her husband (he was more identifiable black, thus she participated in the " passing" game.) should have been a clue, nevertheless she was determined to make them accept her. And this is where I had conflict. Why would a black woman who was raised around other affluent blacks, accepted and identified as black, want to be in these people's country clubs and social circles? Why did she not avail herself to the groups that she grew up among, The Links, Jack and Jill, etc. and be happy where she would be accepted. Even as a poet/writer there are groups to belong, many of them interracial who will accept one on the basis of common goals.

More than a book on a woman conflicted by her blackness of lack thereof is the sad commentary on race identity and how America has pitted blacks among each other based on skin color going back to slavery. Nella Larson, Jessie Fauset, and Wallace Thurman and numerous other authors have written on the this issue of characters who are conflicted and the schizophrenic existence they live. Also how one's family views and upbringing affects how we feel about ourselves. When pride in one's race and self and not enough self-love is not stressed enough then we have these kind of stories. Some blacks of the author's background have similar stories, others do not go through this much drama.

I met Ms. Derracotte about three years ago when she was a writer-in-residence at Mills College here in Oakland. I went to her reading, met her and have to say that she seems more at peace with herself. She is a cofounder of a writers retreat for African American poets. In answer to one reviewer who asked what was the point of this book, I think the answer was this was a catharsis, a cleansing for her soul.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tragic Mulatto or Human Target?, August 10, 2001

By 

Cecily Walker (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey (Paperback)

Toi Derricotte is an African American poet with skin so light that she claims she's often mistaken for white.  What's more startling is that Terricotte isn't always upset when this happens.  We have heard discourse from other light-skinned African Americans about the dangers of passing, and more often than not, these people feel a need to be somehow more committed to 'the community' and 'the nation' than their darker-skinned compatriots. What we haven't heard is the voice of a woman who is conflicted about her own feelings about blackness, and how she distances herself from darker-skinned African Americans.

The Black Notebooks is a literary memoir written over the space of twenty years. In it Derricotte discusses the distance she places between herself and other darker-skinned African Americans, her obsession with joining an all-white country club even after her neighbors have made it perfectly clear that an invitation will never be forthcoming, as well as her experiences with being the only Black poet in residence at a well-known writer's colony.  Much in the way that GLBT people have coming out experiences wherein they disclose their sexual orientation, Derricotte has similar revealing moments when she has to reveal to whites that she is in fact African American.  

Rather than being exhausting, Derricotte's memoir is a brave reflection on how it feels to navigate safely (albeit not comfortably) between two worlds, and how this navigation affects her mental health. The book isn't written as a plea for understanding or acceptance, it simply is. Her honesty over her recalcitrant feelings is like nothing else I've ever seen, and for that reason alone, it's a worthwhile read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, January 18, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Black Notebooks: An Interior Journey (Hardcover)

I liked the book, and I really wanted more about certain things. It's interesting to get a glimpse into her world and its extraordinary circumstances. Her story helps to identify the nuances of racism today. Also, she zeroes us in on some very intimate moments in her life, and that raises questions about human relations in general. I thought it was brave of her to share like this. I'm sure I would read another installment if she wrote one.