Product Description
The Black Notebooks is one of the most extraordinary and courageous accounts of race in this country, seen through the eyes of a light-skinned black woman and a respected American poet. It challenges all our preconceived notions of what it means to be black or white, and what it means to be human. The Black Notebooks was the recipient of the Anisfield-Wolfe Award and the 1998 Caucus of the American Library Association Award and chosen as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.Amazon.com Review
Realizing that her light skin and "good hair" conspired to give her a unique, unasked-for perspective on the racial divide in the United States, African American poet Toi Derricotte inscribed her anguish in two decades' worth of journal entries. The Black Notebooks records countless moments when Derricotte was showered with offhand entitlements and racist confidences by whites who assumed she, too, was white. She speaks ambivalently of milking such moments, deliberately making end runs around her dark-skinned husband, Bruce, while looking for a home in an all-white suburb or hoping for a decent hotel room. Derricotte talks bluntly, too, of a self-loathing that accompanies being black in America and of not being "black enough." Her honest, angry, painful truth-telling veers into self-absorption and repetition, but perhaps that's fitting: racism hammers away at people in tiny and huge events repeated day after day. Says Derricotte, "My skin causes certain problems continuously, problems that open the issue of racism over and over like a wound." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

one of the best memoirs out there
The language is gorgeous. The honesty is palpable.The rigorous (self) examination is thorough.And as a bi-racial/ethnic person myself (not the same makeup or specifics as derricotte), she was able to articulate so many things of my experience that have been so impossible to find language for.Bravo.

A Profound Witnessing
The Black Notebooks is likely the most unabashed work I've ever read about the human experience in America.Add to that the issue of race, identity, and desperate desire to 'fit' and 'be' In--only to be denied--and you have a poignantly engrossing treatise on Race, Psychology and Sociology in the US, Mid-To Late 20th Century.Within this book Derricotte exposes her trauma of living as a woman who visually (to whites mostly) appears to be white, and because of it, is relentlessly bombarded with slurs and racist ideology, spoken as plain as day and without apology or consciousness.These routine offerings (endured) by the white people in the author's life are perpetratedbecause of the belief that she is 'one of them.'

What is grinding in Derricotte's work is that recurring moment of awareness within herself that she is black and that others speaking so shamelessly do not see it.Further, the author must then decide [again and again] to address the slights (by telling them of her ethnicity) or ignore them out of fear of being 'found out' and alienated/ostracized by the society that she chooses to surround herself with.And that is, in the midst of what has to be a schizophrenia-inducing ongoing nightmare, part of the issue--left unadressed--as I see it.Derricotte has been raised in a middle-class/upper-class world where she says all the people she knew loved and touched were black--albeit apparently of lighter flesh tone like she is.That said, her choosing to live exclusively among whites seems like an escape from everyone else--even though her husband is visibly black, though he was raised in an all white environment and never saw himself, his blackness as something of an asset.

It seems to me that Derricotte could have made different choices earlier in her life that would have reduced the bludgeoning of racism she faced on a daily basis by choosing often to hide in the midst of white society.Perhaps her upbringing--for all its exceptional and exclusionary (among other blacks) 'qualities' contributed significantly and maybe unconsciously to her wanting to be buried in the bosom of whiteness.

Many paradoxes exist within this memoir. The psychological dismantling, soul shredding and ultimately soul expanding experiences offered here arewithout a doubt, memorable, indelible and personal.And in some ways, universal, because the ultimate goal of living is to, in fact, live, and to love, celebrate and rejoice the gift of life itself.For all of the author's courageous, outrageous and intense revelations on race and identity, we are made more whole because of her honest sharing and unique perspective on the subjects of racism and all the other isms that are a byproduct of it.

This book is recommended to anyone wanting to dive headfirst into the murky waters of self-discovery through and ultimately beyond race.

Who you are will shape this book for you
At least I think it will.Reading it as a white female, I feel that this book helped me realize (and at least make my way towards understanding) the constant awareness of race that nonwhites feel while walking around.I read this book as part of a class in which we read many other texts about race and so it was one of many that helped me with this.It might seem silly, but it was very easy for me before to ignore the pressure and importance that race plays in everyday life in America.I may not be aware of it, but every day the fact that I am white allows me privilege that I would not otherwise have.

Call it my own ignorance, but for me that is what this book was about.Someone else will read it differently, depending on their history and race.For me, one of the good things about this book was that it helped show that racism was more than just the individual prejudices of a few people but was not written in an academic way.One of the other reviewers complained that Derricotte seems to want everything - pass in the white world as white and be accepted in the black community.That might be true, but that is not the feeling that the book left me with - and that might be because I am white and thus perhaps do not understand the consequences of racism as well.

Call it as you will.I loved the book, although it was hard for me to read.But it might not have the same impact on you as it did on me.

(By the way, I am reading the tag suggestions and what does the Rwandan Genocide have to do with a book about a light-skinned African-American woman in upper-class America?What is wrong with these tags?)

Dark, wrenching story of woman tortured by her color
It took me longer than usual to finish a book of this size.Inside of this little book was heart wrenching anguish and I just could not read it through without interruptions, reading other things and giving myself a rest.
Is Ms. Derracotte a victim of the tragic mulatto syndrome or is some of her anguish of her own making?

Coming from an upper class African American family that has kept the blood line "light and bright" for generations, the author's journey as a white- looking black woman comes to a climax when she moves to an all-white exclusive neighborhood in New York.It's not that they don't want her there, they just don't want her trying to assimilate into their way of life.The fact that she conducted the initial business of purchasing the house without her husband (he was more identifiable black, thusshe participated in the " passing" game.) should have been a clue, nevertheless she was determined to make them accept her.And this is where I had conflict.Why would a black woman who was raised around other affluent blacks, accepted and identified as black, want to be in these people's country clubs and social circles?Why did she not avail herself to the groups that she grew up among, The Links, Jack and Jill, etc. and be happy where she would be accepted.Even as a poet/writer there are groups to belong, many of them interracial who will accept one on the basis of common goals.

More than a book on a woman conflicted by her blackness of lack thereof is the sad commentary on race identity and how America has pitted blacks among each other based on skin color going back to slavery. Nella Larson, Jessie Fauset,and Wallace Thurman and numerous other authorshave written on the this issue of characters who are conflicted and the schizophrenic existence they live.Also how one's family views and upbringing affects how we feel about ourselves.When pride in one's race and self and not enough self-love is not stressed enough then we have these kind of stories.Some blacks of the author's background have similar stories, others do not go through this much drama.

I met Ms. Derracotte about three years ago when she was a writer-in-residence at Mills College here in Oakland.I went to her reading, met her and have to say that she seems more at peace with herself.She is a cofounder of a writers retreat for African American poets.In answer to one reviewer who asked what was the point of this book, I think the answer was this was a catharsis, a cleansing for her soul.

Tragic Mulatto or Human Target?
Toi Derricotte is an African American poet with skin so light that she claims she's often mistaken for white.  What's more startling is that Terricotte isn't always upset when this happens.  We have heard discourse from other light-skinned African Americans about the dangers of passing, and more often than not, these people feel a need to be somehow more committed to 'the community' and 'the nation' than their darker-skinned compatriots. What we haven't heard is the voice of a woman who is conflicted about her own feelings about blackness, and how she distances herself from darker-skinned African Americans.

The Black Notebooks is a literary memoir written over the space of twenty years. In it Derricotte discusses the distance she places between herself and other darker-skinned African Americans, her obsession with joining an all-white country club even after her neighbors have made it perfectly clear that an invitation will never be forthcoming, as well as her experiences with being the only Black poet in residence at a well-known writer's colony.  Much in the way that GLBT people have coming out experiences wherein they disclose their sexual orientation, Derricotte has similar revealing moments when she has to reveal to whites that she is in fact African American.  

Rather than being exhausting, Derricotte's memoir is a brave reflection on how it feels to navigate safely (albeit not comfortably) between two worlds, and how this navigation affects her mental health. The book isn't written as a plea for understanding or acceptance, it simply is. Her honesty over her recalcitrant feelings is like nothing else I've ever seen, and for that reason alone, it's a worthwhile read. ... Read more

Product Description
Sexual abuse happens. Domestic violence happens. We know it happens. We have child protective services. We watch Law and Order: SVU. We are surrounded by sex in our media, and we are surrounded by sexual violence in our media. And yet I have turned to the work of Toi Derricotte because we are not surrounded by sexual violence in our literary criticism, because we are not discussing sexual violence in our college classrooms, because the work of a poet like Derricotte, a poet who reveals the long, difficult trajectory of the emergence of voice, of the emergence of a healthy, vibrant, bisexual self, is largely ignored by those of us in the academy who contribute articles to that grand behemoth otherwise known as the Modern Language Association's International Bibliography. The Black poetic feminism of Toi Derricotte works on this silence in a variety of ways. Read on, and perhaps learn a great deal from her journey. ... Read more

Product Description
Sexual abuse happens. Domestic violence happens. We know it happens. We have child protective services. We watch Law and Order: SVU. We are surrounded by sex in our media, and we are surrounded by sexual violence in our media. And yet I have turned to the work of Toi Derricotte because we are not surrounded by sexual violence in our literary criticism, because we are not discussing sexual violence in our college classrooms, because the work of a poet like Derricotte, a poet who reveals the long, difficult trajectory of the emergence of voice, of the emergence of a healthy, vibrant, bisexual self, is largely ignored by those of us in the academy who contribute articles to that grand behemoth otherwise known as the Modern Language Association's International Bibliography. The Black poetic feminism of Toi Derricotte works on this silence in a variety of ways. Read on, and perhaps learn a great deal from her journey. ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of poetry by American poet, Toi Derricotte. This is her fourth published volume, following, "Natural Birth", "The Empress of the Death House", and "Captivity". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Moving and unforgettable poems.
The poems in this collection are outstanding. They tackle subjects that many readers, we white ones especially, too often avoid because they are so painful. Derricotte's poetry handles racism in a complex and truthful way, without softening any blows. For me, the poems are less "about racism" than they evoke and inhabit the context of racism in which all people of color must move. This is a powerful and important work by a truly first rate poet.

a wonderful book
Bravo to Toi Derricotte on this collection of poems. No other poet I can think of writes so beautifully and movingly on the subject of race.There's a lot of pain beneath the surface of racial relations, but Toi Derricote's words make something of beauty from that pain. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

mimicked
Toi Derricotte and I don't have much in common but I found myself really identifying with her descriptions and characterizations in Natural Birth.The unsual circumstances surrounding the birth of her son, especially during that period of time when it was still not commonplace for a woman to have a child out of wedlock.Her dedication to her son, while I transition to the next phase of my son's life.It was quite comforting to see the journey through someone else's eyes.

The Unnaturalness of the Birthing Process
I missed reading the original edition of Toi Derricotte's Natural Birth Poems (1983), which is out of print.However, Natural Birth-the reissuance of the poems, along with a powerful introduction-adds new insights to the conversation about the birthing process.Having recently read Derricotte's soul-baring The Black Notebooks (1997), I expected this work to be another frank, poignant self-discovery that enlightens the reader and this volume of prose poems delivers.It allows one to explore possibilities while examining hitherto unchallenged assumptions and beliefs about pregnancy and childbirth.The poem "delivery" is a conflation of the fear, pain, clinical dis/order and wonder of the passages in the delivery room.

We mothers know Derricotte speaks the truth unflinchingly and proudly to "testify to the power of nature and love."

Poetry that shares the real experience
I first read this book of poetry when I was pregnant, and was moved to tears. Derricotte is so raw with her language; the experience is all there for you.

After I had my baby--after 36 long, painful hours--I reread the book and cried and cried. It was every emotion and feeling I'd had, only expressed more eloquently than I could have. ... Read more

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Who's Who among African Americans provides biographical and careerdetails on notable African American individuals, including leaders from sports, the arts, business, religion and more. ... Read more

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Word count: 2137. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Toi Derricotte (pronounced DARE-i-cot ) (b. April 12, 1941 in Hamtramck, Michigan) is an American poet. At Wayne State University she earned a B.A. in 1965 and an M.A. in 1984 at New York University in English literature.Derricotte was born the daughter of Antonia Baquet, a Creole from Louisiana, and Benjamin Sweeney Webster, a Kentucky native, and later half-sister to Benjamin, Jr. At around ten or eleven years old, she began a secret journal that included, among other things, the disintegration of her parents' marriage and the death of her grandmother on whom she was very emotionally dependent. During her years at Detroit's Girls Catholic Central High School, Derricotte recounts a religious education that she felt was steeped in images of death and punishment, a Catholicism that, according to the poet, morbidly paraded "the crucifixion, saints, martyrs in the Old Testament and the prayers of the Mass." ... Read more

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In 'Almost There', Nuala O'Faolain begins her story from the moment her life began to change, in all manners of ways - subtle, radical, predictable and unforseen. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

wonderfully written, rich prose with a sad edge
I listened to Nuala read this on CD and having her tell her story every time I got into the car for a week was a fine experience I anticipated with each leg of the commute.She has a lovely voice and is a good reader. This reflection of growing older and discovering the grip of long dead parents was sad, but interesting and engaging. Just when I was getting comfortable with the direction of the story, something startling would happen. I felt like I knew her and wanted to pick up the phone and call and give advice! The conclusion was perfect but not a fairytale ending. If you like a biography that has vivid descriptions you can feel and smell take hold of, you will enjoy this book.

Brutal, disturbing, honest
This is my first book by this author and thus have nothing else to compare this memoir to.My first impression was her honesty, with herself and with others:her alcoholic mother, her own drinking (a bottle of wine a night), her relationship failures both with men and women, and her regrets in life.Had she been an American publishing this book it would have been a sensation, but alas, because she is Irish and Catholic and an unknown in the US, the book made little waves here.

She mentions her first book "Are You Somebody" a lot in this memoir and this seems to be a sequel.It's the book that shot her to fame, which brought her interviews in the more progressive US Northeast where many Irish live.She ponders her success almost to the point of insanity, rather than enjoying her success for her efforts.It's that typical Catholic guilt feeling.

Her honesty with her seemingly gay relationship had me at first stumped.I almost stopped reading after her first mention of her ex-partner leaving her, but I overcame that after I continued her chapter.Then I realized that subject is just too tabu in the US.So I congratulate her for bringing that subject out in the open.

Her candor of her first book caused some heartache to others in her life, others who may have hurt her in the past.Was she trying to get even with them by publishing the events as they happened according to her?She's honest and covers the other person's point of view, which was a courageous act.Most people who write memoirs mention the people who hurt them, but few take the time to ask themselves why they hurt them, or the reasons for the behavior.Different people, different perspectives, says Nuala.Who's right?

It's definitely not an easy read or one that one laughs out loud reading.It's one more of the "Damn, that hurt!" reaction that, after more thought, allows the reader to gain greater respect for the author, and allows the readers to look deeper into themselves.

NOT HALFWAY THERE YET .........
first off i want to say i shouldn't complain too much as i bought an autographed hard copy of this book for just $1.00 . Thank God for small favors .to begin with i really was enjoying this book in the beginningand too quick to imagine myself buying her first memoir .

what bothered me the most was her having an illicit affair with a man who even she described as not being educated, nor really a " looker " .yet time and again she would drive miles,hours,and pay for their trysts .
he'd bring hard candy ....lol.
like, didn't she wonder why she never heard nor saw this gink on holidays such as xmas .not even a card ? I think she knew in her deepest being.she's just the type of woman for some reason needs to be exploited as that's all she feels she truly deserves . it was sickening .

she's lucky to have found someone who cares .but, i didn't give a damn about her during this entire fiasco of a book .she saw the inside of more motels then " the gideon bible " .

my advice to her ...go back to column writing . she ought be ashamed to have her siblings read this as well as everybody else .

i don't believe in bookburning ..but, i'm tempted .

A brutally honest book read by the author
I could really relate to her life's reflections in relation to her own personal experiences as well as her perspective on universal family situations. Nuala's frank proclamationrevealing her loneliness was quite powerful.The fact that she read this book on CDherself with wit and prose makes me want others to listen to her gift of gab.

How Did Oprah Miss This One?
Yes, ma'am, this `analyze my life and then tell-all' book seems like the sort of fare on which Oprah could chew for several shows. It was ready-made for her book club and would have instantly been embraced by her angst-loving fan base, but somehow it stayed outside that sort of recognition. But that's not a cheap shot, I mean it, this is a book for those who like the sort of reading material common in Oprah's book club. So Oprah readers, go get this!

I don't know if I was supposed to, exactly, but I found this book gloomy, and mostly only liked the rare parts where Irish Times writer Nuala O'Faolain wasn't speaking so personally. Her reports on the state of Northern Ireland, her experiences in America (page 195, " 'America' was always the word for promise." Boy have I ever heard that before...) the compare and contrast moments that dealt with Ireland in relation to other places she's been, these were a lot more likely to hold my interest, I found, than her oft-murky forays into her own allegedly bleak childhood, her controversial romantic life, or her stark realizations at her own failings, failures, and foibles.

Still there's something endearing about a woman whose best mate is her dog, Molly, and whose singlemost passion in life seems to be her readiness to delve into self-deprecation as if it is also her salvation.

I don't regret reading Almost There, but I don't plan on seeking out any of Nuala O'Faolain's other published books, either. ... Read more