About the Author

Debra J. Dickerson lives in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

"Breathtaking... It is a startling thing to hear an American speak as frankly and un-selfservingly about race."
--The New York Times Book Review

"[Dickerson's] willingness to bare herself on these pages is more of a patriotic act than all her years in military service."
--Newsday

"Debra J. Dickerson... analyzes [her life] with the ferociousness of her intellect and the humility of her heart."
--Ms.

Adult/High School-Dickerson recounts her alienating experiences growing up in St. Louis through Harvard law school. She describes herself as having been a studious but self-conscious child with very low self-esteem. Her voracious reading habits resulted in highly impressive SAT scores. Nonetheless, the young African-American woman decided against going to college and worked as a waitress instead. She soon enrolled in community college and, later, had a highly successful career with the U.S. Air Force, mastering the Korean language, and then earning her bachelor's and master's degrees. As she approached 30, she became increasingly disillusioned with military life and wanted to be in a position to help working-class people achieve success. She quit the Air Force and entered law school. At the end of her memoir, Dickerson includes five pages of acknowledgments in which she admits to having "amalgamated events and moved things around in time or location for ease of storytelling." Readers will admire her frankness and honesty in admitting to these literary liberties in a nonfiction work. Her tale of achieving the American dream should be inspiring to teens-especially those who come from underprivileged backgrounds. This memoir shows young people that they can become successful without having to become athletes or entertainers.-Joyce Fay Fletcher, Rippon Middle School, Prince William County, VA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

HFollowing a controversial 1995 New Republic article about the shooting of her nephew, Dickerson became a popular commentator on race and society in America. In her first book, she again stirs the cauldron with a no-holds barred look at her humble Midwestern beginnings, scrappy clan, career strivings and personal miscues and victories. Rarely does a memoir strip away so much emotional armor to expose so many defects as well as strengths. A lawyer with a Harvard Law School pedigree and journalist with bylines in many leading national publications, Dickerson first turns her unflinching gaze upon her struggling parents, sharecroppers who had migrated to north St. Louis, whom she analyzes in painstaking detail. She admits the brutal psychological effects of her father's iron-fisted rule and life in an inner-city environment, which left her with a growing burden of self-doubt and self-hatred that only subsided upon her entry into the Air Force at age 21. A minor flaw is Dickerson's reluctance to examine her other four siblings with the same razor-sharp scrutiny that she applies to her youngest brother, Bobby, who als0 endured emotional abuse by their father. If Dickerson is ruthless in her appraisal of others, she is twice as hard on her own shortcomings, especially the views about poor and lower-working-class blacks trapped in poverty and despair she held as a young woman. Her display of courage following a rape, along with her gritty determination to excel at Harvard, attests to the complexity and resilience of this chameleon of a woman. This tough, sassy memoir dramatically underscores the importance of hope, family and truth in one person's quest to reach and sustain her version of the American dream. Agent, Ronald Golddfarb. First printing 75,000; 9-city author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

"Breathtaking... It is a startling thing to hear an American speak as frankly and un-selfservingly about race."
--The New York Times Book Review

"[Dickerson's] willingness to bare herself on these pages is more of a patriotic act than all her years in military service."
--Newsday

"Debra J. Dickerson... analyzes [her life] with the ferociousness of her intellect and the humility of her heart."
--Ms.