The Professor's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Emily Raboteau (Author) "My big brother Bernard took great pains to learn how to talk Black..." (more)
Key Phrases: rash journal, click boom, colored kid, Aunt Patty, Nan Zan, Deb Levine (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A thoughtful, satisfying meditation on race and family history, Raboteau's novel is that rare debut by a young author that stands out not for its stylistic swagger or precocity, but for its simple grace and absolute wisdom. The title character, Emma Boudreaux, and her "twin" brother, Bernie, are the products of an interracial marriage and an unconventional household. But while Bernie embraces his blackness, Emma is less sure about who she is; still, she chooses to defer to her brother and their shared "skin." As an adolescent she only vaguely grasps the mysterious legacy of her black father, who went from an impoverished, segregated Mississippi childhood-his own father having been publicly lynched-to an esteemed academic career at Princeton University. That her father is often absent from family life only deepens Emma's connection with her brother. But when Bernie falls into a coma after a freak accident, Emma, now a freshman at Yale, is forced to reevaluate her identity. With shifting points of view, the novel weaves together unexpected fragments, like a paper Emma "wrote" for a post-colonial African novel class and her comatose brother's lucid dreams. Drawing from the traditions of African storytelling, the novel maps a mythically rich terrain without ever leaving the confines of American realism. Raboteau, who has already won awards for her fiction, has an assured voice that illuminates pain as acutely as love, and this book flaunts her exceptional storytelling talents.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–In this powerful and unflinchingly stark story, Emma Boudreaux often reaches into the past to try to understand the present. Her father is black and her mother is white, and the teen is trying to find her place in a world in which she feels like an outsider. Her brother, Bernie, strong and perfect and comfortable with his blackness, is her anchor, her compass. When he has a freak accident and becomes a vegetable, Emma feels abandoned and emotionally isolated. Left alone to discover who she is, she explores the past, especially her father's, Princeton professor Bernard Boudreaux. His own narrative reveals grim secrets and a twisted, tortured journey through family history to the present. At its darkest and most painful is the lynching of his father before he was born. It will take all of Emma's strength and resolve to survive, and to escape the shadowy and painful legacies that ensnared her father and brother. Raboteau's writing is vivid, compelling, and fearless as she tackles themes of racial violence, anger, family secrets, and self-discovery. The author changes perspective several times, from Emma to her father and even to Bernie in his comatose state, showing how each character is shaped by time and history. Readers will enjoy the history woven into the superb storytelling as Raboteau skillfully interweaves past and present events to reveal that love does somehow survive.–Susanne Bardelson, Kitsap Regional Library, WA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (January 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805075062
• ISBN-13: 978-0805075069
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #140,910 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A glittering debut, February 18, 2005

By	Chandra Prasad (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews

A glittering debut from a young author who is definitely going places. Raboteau molds her characters with a delicate, cunning hand. I had the sense that she took great care in polishing the book because the story seemed to flow effortlessly, almost as if Emma, Bernie, and others were propelling themselves.

Raboteau's skill is most striking in small descriptions, in details, where her style is poignant, sometimes disarmingly brilliant. If you haven't read "Kavita Through Glass" in The Best American Short Stories 2003, you're missing out. There, too, Raboteau makes the most out of subtlety and understatement, speaking with a quiet voice that somehow resounds.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Hate works like a circle if you don't stop it somewhere", March 6, 2005

By	M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Issues of gender, questions of identity and the ever-present difficulties of race highlight this witty and fast-paced intergenerational saga from author Emily Raboteau. The Professor's Daughter quirkily jumps along, and tells of the turbulent and tumultuous life of Emma Boudreaux. Emma is a woman of mixed race, who is forced to re-examine her life and look back into her past when her respected and venerated older brother Bernie has a terrible accident and ends up in a coma.

Alternating between sections on Emma, and Bernard, her father. Raboteau is cleverly able to underscore the difficulties that mixed-race children face, while also highlighting the terrible injustices that existed in the South during the last century. Raboteau has a gorgeously slight and honeyed style that avoids becoming heavy-handed or preachy, and her ability to instill offbeat humor into the most terrible situations show she's a writer of tremendous talent and promise. Maybe this is why the Professor's Daughter packs such a powerful emotional and expressive punch.

Raised in a shack in Mississippi, Bernard Boudreaux was a truly gifted student. Encouraged by is caretaker Nan Zan and his eccentric Uncle Luscious, Bernard's talents get him into a prestigious Catholic boarding school for boys in New Orleans. Being the first and only African-American student to attend, he is forced to confront some of the most terrifyingly cruel racist jokes. Regarded as a "contaminant" by the parents of the wealthy white students, he's subjected to bashings and violence on an almost daily basis. These experiences, along with the truth about his father's terrible death, shape the rest of Bernard's life.

Bernard goes ahead and marries a white woman, so his children won't have to inherit his misfortune. Like a "game to protect evil" Bernard hopes that Emma and Bernie will be shielded from the racism that has constantly plagued him. But their mixed race causes Emma and Bernie to feel alienated from both black and white culture. Emma's journey is one of not only self-acceptance and "fitting in" but also the passage towards her own self-identity. Through her brother's terrible accident, and the discovery of her grandfather's secret lynching at the hands of racists, Emma is gradually able to move on.

Emma is a fabulously three-dimensional character. Whether she is worrying over having sex with her boyfriend, or lecturing her mother about "getting a life, she's forever emotionally complex, reflective, and studious. Her willful strength of mind even extends to the ability to produce mysteriously and violent rashes over her face and body, which cause her no end of pain and embarrassment. Emma's own individuality is so strongly connected with her brother's and that, upon losing him; she struggles to find her own true self.

Raboteau has a definite ear for natural language, and her dialogue is often sparse but always hits the mark. In some passages, Raboteau even tries her hand at magical realism, particularly when describing Emma's thoughts on a beautifully nubile, homesick Ethiopian who seeks to end a local deer hunt. The Professor's Daughter is a totally compelling and forceful account of what it's like to grow up half-white and half-black in a world that unfortunately likes to have clear-cut, and often-straightforward definitions about race and skin colour. Mike Leonard March 05.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars So-so, September 21, 2005

By	a reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This book isn't bad, but it's written in a choppy style that makes it hard to follow the "story" and feel close to the characters. Emma Boudreaux seemed like a ghost rather than a full-fledged person. Also, I felt that I was told about her close relationship to her brother rather than allowed to experience it firsthand. I agree with the reviewer who said this reads like a journal or "emotional toilet" of some kind. That said, I do believe Emily Raboteau is a talented writer. I'll certainly read future works by her.