Unafraid of the Dark: A Memoir [Paperback]

Rosemary Bray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 1999

In her deeply affecting, vividly written memoir, Rosemary L. Bray describes with remarkable frankness growing up poor in Chicago in the 1960s, and her childhood shaped by welfare, the Roman Catholic Church, and the civil rights movement.

Bray writes poignantly of her lasting dread of the cold and the dark that characterized her years of poverty; of her mother's extraordinary strength and resourcefulness; and of the system that miraculously enabled her mother to scrape together enough to keep the children fed and clothed. Bray's parents, held together by their ambitions for their children and painfully divided by their poverty, punctuate young Rosemary's nights with their violent fights and define her days with their struggles.

This powerful, ultimately inspiring book is a moving testimony of the history Bray overcame, and the racial obstacles she continues to see in her children's way.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In elegant, passionate prose, Rosemary L. Bray uses her personal history to persuasively defend America's much-maligned welfare system. A smart black girl from the Chicago slums didn't have much chance of going to Yale or becoming an editor at the New York Times Book Review before Aid to Families with Dependent Children helped Rosemary's selfless mother make ends meet and keep Rosemary in school. Bray's account of her progress is both inspiring and despairing, as she criticizes the welfare "reforms" that closed to others doors that were opened for her. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

YA-Bray's memoir is a rags-to-middle-class story. Born in 1955, the author grew up in Chicago; her mother eked out an existence on welfare while her father worked sporadically, hindered and angered by segregation and taking it out on his family. Her mother spent part of her AFDC check on Catholic school tuition for her daughter; the nuns, seeing Bray's promise, pushed her on to a private, liberal high school. She persevered and blossomed, while developing an interest in the civil rights movement. She won a scholarship to Yale, where she enjoyed the intellectual stimulation provided by fellow black students. Eventually, she became an editor at the New York Times Book Review. Married to her college sweetheart and living in Harlem by then, Bray led efforts to hold her neighborhood together. She now lives in suburban New Jersey and continues to write. In a direct writing style that flows easily from point to point, she fleshes her story out and distills complexities of feeling and situations into clear prose so that readers can readily understand subtle concepts. The last chapter makes a strong statement against the 1996 welfare-reform bill that will force parents of young children to work, making them unable to give the care that, thanks to welfare, her mother was home to give her. Bray says that we will all pay the price for these neglected children.
Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; Trade edition (March 16, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385494750
• ISBN-13: 978-0385494755
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #980,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST-read, December 30, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unafraid of the Dark: A Memoir (Paperback)

This woman knows how to write and she has something to say. She makes her point very effectively. For the cost of a paperback, you can give a copy to every Republican or other person who matters to you who doesn't understand or support Aid to Dependent Children or welfare, etc. Her book leads people to care about her and understand.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring book that school teachers might use., February 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Unafraid of the Dark: A Memoir (Paperback)

A deeply moving, inspiring story. I felt like I was right there with her when she described her brief childhood encounter with Martin Luther King. Her writing brings characters alive like the best fiction I've ever read. I would seriously consider trying to get my school to order this book (I'm studying to become a high school English teacher).

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading!, January 13, 1999

By 

Indienne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unafraid of the Dark: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Rosemary Bray's memoir cuts through the anti-welfare hype and contempt for poor people, especially poor black women, that brought us "welfare reform." Her mother went on AFDC because her father was a violent gambler, and she had four kids to raise. Welfare enabled rosemary to grow up in threadbare but at least decent poverty--food on table, roof over head,school supplies and so forth. Far from promulgating the "culture of dependency," welfare helped Bray's mother get some independence. And far from passing welfare on to her daughter, Rosemary went to yale. Bray writes so perceptively about her family and her childhood, about the racism of l960s Chicago (and of yale). she made me think about all the little cruelties and deprivations poor people are expected to just accept, and how wrong this is. I wish every white person would read this book, and every person who thinks people are poor because they "don't want to work." Isn't it interesting that even in the midst of the "memoir boom," this book didn't get front page reviews?