The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother » (10th Anniversary Edition)

James McBride burst onto the scene with The Color of Water, a memoir exploring the author's struggle to understand his biracial identity. A bit of a Renaissance man -- he's a skilled musician who has written for the likes of soul diva Anita Baker -- McBride crossed over into the fiction camp with the war novel Miracle at St. Anna.

This national bestseller tells the story of James McBride and his mother—a rabbi's daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a church, and put 12 children through college. Unabridged. 6 CDs.

Salon - James Marcus

At a time when the relationship between African-Americans and Jews is deeply fissured, The Color of Water reminds us that the two groups have a long history of coexistence -- sometimes within a single person. The author's mother, Ruth Shilsky, was born in Poland in 1920, the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. She grew up in rural Virginia, hemmed in by anti-Semitism and small-town claustrophobia, and at the age of 18 she fled to the cultural antipodes of Harlem. There, four years later, she married a black man named Dennis McBride, and since her family promptly disowned her, she launched a second existence as (to quote her son) "a flying compilation of competing interests and conflicts, a black woman in white skin." The lone Caucasian in her Brooklyn housing project, she somehow raised 12 children without ever quite admitting she was white. In retrospect, of course, her son is able to recognize that his parents "brought a curious blend of Jewish-European and African-American distrust and paranoia into our house." However, as children, James McBride and his 11 siblings didn't dwell on questions of their mother's color. Only later, after he became a professional journalist, did McBride feel compelled to tackle the riddle of his heritage. Bit by bit, he coaxed out his mother's story, and her voice -- stoic, funny, and with a matter-of-fact flintiness -- alternates perfectly with his own tale of biracial confusion and self-discovery.

CONTENTS 1. Dead..............................................................1 2. The Bicycle.......................................................5 3. Kosher...........................................................15 4. Black Power......................................................21 5. The Old Testament................................................37 6. The New Testament................................................45 7. Sam..............................................................57 8. Brothers and Sisters.............................................65 9. Shul.............................................................79 10. School..........................................................85 11. Boys...........................................................107 12. Daddy..........................................................117 13. New York.......................................................129 14. Chicken Man....................................................137 15. Graduation.....................................................153 16. Driving........................................................159 17. Lost in Harlem.................................................169 18. Lost in Delaware...............................................177 19. The Promise....................................................193 20. Old Man Shilsky................................................203 21. A Bird Who Flies...............................................213 22. A Jew Discovered...............................................219 23. Dennis.........................................................231 24. New Brown......................................................249 25. Finding Ruthie.................................................259 Epilogue...........................................................279 Thanks and Acknowledgments.........................................287