Come By Here: My Mother's Life [Hardcover]

Clarence Major (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 2002

Lavish praise for come by here

"With elegant simplicity and uncommon wisdom, Clarence Major gives us not just the truth of his mother's life but the unspoken truth behind the lie of color in the American story. A compelling narrative."
-- Rilla Askew, author, Fire in Beulah

"A brilliant rendering of a rich and eventful life. With creative insight, love, and admiration, Major shows us how in family life down through the generations, race really matters."
-- Andrew Billingsley, author, Climbing Jacob's Ladder:
The Enduring Legacy of African American Families

Critical acclaim for Clarence Major

"Clarence Major has a remarkable mind and the talent to match."
-- Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate

"One of America's most gifted and versatile writers."
-- Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Using his poet's eye for detail and his novelist's ear for speech, Major (who was shortlisted for a 1999 National Book Award for Configurations) mutes his voice to create his mother's memoir. With authentic plainness, Inez who is light, not white relates her journey to self-fulfillment through a world of demented racial complexity. In a country where a white woman could give birth to a black child but a black woman could not give birth to a white child, Inez lives a secret life as a white woman. Issues of race (as she deals with the employment opportunities available to her only as a white woman) and issues of gender (as Inez deals with an abusive husband) occupy, by virtue of their social significance, the core of this skillfully written book. The rich details of growing up (school, games, friends, church) and of family life (courting, marriage, babies, dying) give Major's book particular vitality. Captured through the vision of one woman, interchangeably black or white in a time and place where she could not be both, Inez's memoir moves from plantation to segregation to migration. As one generation's smallpox becomes another's measles, as Aunt Saffrey's fancy horse-drawn buggy is outmoded by Pa's new Chevrolet, as Inez moves from tiny Dublinville to the big city of Atlanta, a whole history of African-American life unfolds. Women readers will find Inez's resilience and perseverance inspirational.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Poet and novelist Major explores the significance of race by recounting the life of his mother, a woman light enough to pass for white. Inez was born in Georgia, the daughter of a black woman and a wealthy white man. Because she looked white, Inez spent her life reacting to the color biases then prevalent in the South: whites assumed she was white and treated her accordingly; some blacks who knew her to be black were distant and resentful. Writing in his mother's voice, Major recalls her eventual move to Chicago to escape an abusive marriage. With her children living in Georgia with their grandmother, Inez is tempted by a friend in a similar situation to pass for white and improve her job prospects. By the 1960s, reunited with her children and living as a black woman, Inez is confronted with racial animus again when the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. makes white skin a liability in her neighborhood. This is a compelling look at the politics of skin color in the U.S. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 12, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471415189
• ISBN-13: 978-0471415183
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,890,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Come By Here: My Mother's Life, April 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Come By Here: My Mother's Life (Hardcover)

This intimate look at race and its implications captured me the minute I opened this book. Clarence Major, the well-known poet, has written a beautiful and touching memoir on his mother's story. Although African American, Inez realized she could pass as a white woman with her light skin and was determined to not let Jim Crow laws hinder on her life. She embarks on a double identity in order to help her family. In the end, this sacrifice leads to self-discovery and offers readers an important look at racial challenges in our recent history.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling memoir of a unique life, September 14, 2004

By 

T. L. Rylands (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Come By Here: My Mother's Life (Hardcover)

I've never read anything else by Clarence Major but he does a splendid job of sharing his mother's compelling life as a light-skinned African-American in the days of segregation. Inez's voice is intimate but honest about what she had to do to survive an abusive husband while keeping her childen safe. Inez's eventual move to Chicago to make a better life for herself and her children is full of rich detail. It is during this time she passes herself off as white in order to get good jobs. Inez's unique perspective as a black woman living in a white world is well worth reading. I was also struck by her continuing goal to bring her children to Chicago and also improve her own life. It is a hard book to put down and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it, August 23, 2002

By 

thesavvybamalady "swblkdiamond" (Prichard, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Come By Here: My Mother's Life (Hardcover)

I read this book within a day, and I enjoyed it. Really. I used to feel contempt for those who passed for white, but in order for one to do better economically and have a more comfortable life, you had to do it. In this book, you have a woman born to a white father and black woman, who survives a difficult marriage and goes to Chicago to make a better life for her and her children. Read it and enjoy.