Sarah Phillips (Northeastern Library of Black Literature) [Paperback]

Andrea Lee (Author), Valerie Smith (Contributor)

Book Description

Series: Northeastern Library of Black Literature | Publication Date: July 3, 1993

This novel, in the words of its title character, is set in "the hermetic world of the old-fashioned black bourgeoisie--a group largely unknown to other Americans, which has carried on with cautious pomp for years in eastern cities and suburbs, using its considerable funds to attempt poignant imitations of high society, acting with genuine gallantry in the struggle for civil rights, and finally producing a generation of children educated in newly integrated schools and impatient to escape the outworn rituals of their parents."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Andrea Lee's authority as a writer comes of an unstinting honesty and a style at once simple and yet luminous." --Susan Richards Shreve, New York Times Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Northeastern (July 3, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155553158X
• ISBN-13: 978-1555531584
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #349,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Black Blue Blood--the real deal, May 8, 2002

By 

K. G. Bates (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sarah Phillips (Northeastern Library of Black Literature) (Paperback)

The bad news is: Sarah Phillips was ahead of its time when it was published in 1984, and beyond the literary critics who praised Andrea Lee's elegantly unvarnished look at the upper reaches of black society, it did not receive much attention. The good news is: with the post-Waiting-To-Exhale realization by the white publishing world that there is no one black way of life, and that the way of life that appeared in Phillips' luminous book very much exists, Sarah Phillips may now get the attention it deserves.

Far from a catalogue of I-gots that exemplifies some of the newer fiction by African Americans who are glibly portraying a non-ghetto way of life (see--I'm upper class! I have a Rolex! A Mercedes! I wear [designer of your choice here]), Lee's novel goes back to the incestuous world of interconnected black families from the Eastern Seaboard, parts of the South and Midwest, whose hallowed folkways reflect both racial pride and the ironic need to ape their white counterparts a parallel societal world. And whose foibles are as avidly watched and relayed, sotto voce, as any characters' in a nighttime soap opera.

Sarah Phillips explores what happens when post-Civil Rights progeny--children who had to be Ten Times Better Than the whites against whom they compete (and by whom they are judged, usually more harshly) to a wider world where race is noted, but does not serve as the invisible force-field it did for their parents. Sarah, with the confidence of her family history, is able to be both detached from her background and amused by it, even as she keeps it in reserve, if necessary, to shield herself from the glib snobbism of the Europeans among whom she's chosen to live.

Lee does not sugar coat Sarah's wish to be the Only One--the only black person--during her sojurn in Europe. But she makes Sarah three-dimensional enough that the reader understands well enough the urge behind the odd wish to be exotique in a foreign setting.

Readers who are revolted by the current urge of some black writers to trumpet their socially important connections will be refreshed by Lee's chronicle of this snippy, edgy young woman.
This is very much the real thing.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant and overlooked collection, June 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sarah Phillips (Northeastern Library of Black Literature) (Paperback)

I cannot understand why it is that this brilliant piece of work is virtually unheard of. Andrea Lee's collection of stories about one central figure, Sarah Phillips, is masterful and universal in its exploration of the journey from girlhood to womanhood. These stories approach adolescence with a rare grace and subtlety that deserves a wide audience, one of all races and ages. Please read this book!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An exceptional piece of work, April 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Sarah Phillips (Northeastern Library of Black Literature) (Paperback)

Sarah Phillips allows readers to gain insight into the black middle class, and the rituals and contradictions that the exposure to an integrated society can create. Considering the time frame in which the story is set, it is, at times, disturbing.