Research Catalog
Off-white : a memoir
- Title
- Off-white : a memoir / Laurie Gunst.
- Author
- Gunst, Laurie.
- Publication
- New York : Soho Press, [2005], ©2005.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | F265.J5 G86 2005 | Off-site |
Holdings
Details
- Description
- 314 pages : illustrations, portraits; 22 cm
- Summary
- "Growing up in an established Jewish family in Richmond, Virginia, Laurie Gunst experienced a love that was to alter the course of her life. Like many children, northern as well as southern, she was brought up by someone other than her mother. Rhoda Lloyd, herself childless, took charge of Laurie from infancy. Though she was paid a salary, it was what she gave freely to the child of her heart that transfigured each of them. The two women remained intimate until Rhoda's death at the age of ninety-two." "Even as a child, Laurie knew that she was "offwhite" - destined by her upbringing to belong both nowhere and everywhere. But it was not until she was a grown woman that she uncovered the truth of her own family's hidden past. One of her great-grandfathers fought for the South in the Civil War, another cooperated with the Ku Klux Klan in fomenting the notorious Wilmington, North Carolina racial massacre of 1898. Shamed by these revelations, but also sustained by the legacy of Rhoda's love, Laurie was inspired to trace Rhoda's ancestry as well, and to find her extended family, one she herself had never know." "Off-White probes the tender and painful truths that lie at the heart of the South - and the rest of our country. Ultimately a work of reconciliation and of healing, it also confronts a bitter past and a present that still challenges us."--BOOK JACKET.
- Subject
- ISBN
- 1569474001 (alk. paper)
- LCCN
- 2005042471
- 9781569474006
- OCLC
- ocm57475892
- SCSB-5196709
- Owning Institutions
- Columbia University Libraries