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| The Color of Water 10th Anniversary Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: James Mcbride
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $5.10
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 1303
Media: Paperback
Edition: 10 Anv
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 159448192X
Dewey Decimal Number: 974.71004960730092
EAN: 9781594481925
ASIN: 159448192X
Publication Date: February 7, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Non-anniversary edition. Clean pages. We ship fast!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
A LOVING TRIBUTE TO MOM... February 28, 2006
38 out of 38 found this review helpful
This book is, indeed, a tribute to the author's mother. In it, the author, a man whose mother was white and his father black, tells two stories: that of his mother and his own. Tautly written in spare, clear prose, it is a wonderful story of a bi-racial family who succeeded and achieved the American dream, despite the societal obstacles placed in its way.
The author's mother was a Polish Orthodox Jew who migrated to America at the age of two with her family during the early nineteen twenties. They ultimately settled down in Virginia, where she led an isolated and lonely life; shunned by whites because she was Jewish and shunned by blacks because she was white. She was raised in a predominantly black neighborhood, where her father, a despicable and harsh man who brutalized his handicapped wife, ran a local grocery store, where he priced gouged his black clientele.
She left home and moved to New York when she was nineteen and never looked back. She met and married the author's father, a black man, when mixed race marriages were still frowned upon by both whites and blacks. Still, she always felt more comfortable around blacks than around whites. When he died sixteen years later, she married another black man who nurtured her eight children by the author's father and proceeded to give her four more children.
The author tells of his childhood, of his family, and of the issue of race that ultimately colored his life while growing up in predominantly black neighborhoods, where his mother stood out like a sore thumb because of the color of her skin. It was always an issue his mother avoided discussing with him, as for her it was not an issue. It was not until the author wrote this book that his mother discussed the issue of race within the context of her own life. From this dialogue emerges a fascinating look at the issues of race, as well as religion, and how it impacts on an individual's identity within our race conscious society.
It is also a very personal story. While the author's family was economically disadvantaged, his eccentric and independent mother always stressed education. She was a strict disciplinarian who brooked no nonsense from her twelve children. A convert to Christianity through her first husband, with whom she founded a Baptist church, she provided her children with the will to succeed. Consequently, all twelve eventually went to college and did her proud. The story of this unique family is told from two distinct, parallel perspectives: that of the author and that of his mother. While both are interesting, it is his mother's story that dominates this beautifully written book, which is, indeed, a tribute to her. It is truly a story told from the heart, as the love that the author has for his mother is evident with every written word.
 Race, race, race, and more race January 5, 2007
28 out of 47 found this review helpful
I actually felt somewhat guilty for not enjoying this book more. But I appear to be the sole dissenter here.
Positives first: Mr. McBride is a very graceful writer. His prose is fluid and easy, a breezy read, and he has a gift for description.
And, there is no doubt that the subject of the book, the author's mother, is a remarkable woman and quite a story. She came into the world with terrible odds against her; a foreigner in a foreign land, an outsider by ethnicity and religion, poor, molested by her father, with a disabled mother who was also a victim of abuse, and with no real support for her at any stage. From this impossible situation she remade her own world, she raised twelve remarkable and accomplished children, relying upon nothing other than her will, her faith, and her strength of character.
But the book suffers from the author's absolute obsession with race. Race colors almost every page of this book; What color am I? What color is God? What color is Jesus? Do I feel more comfortable on the "black side" or the "white side?" Why doesn't my mother look like everyone else's? And on, and on, and on.
When it's not race, it's group identity in other manifestations; religious groupings, ethnic groupings, and so on. The author writes about the treatment of blacks by Jews and vice versa, trafficking in group identifications at nearly every turn. He expresses surprise when someone from one group acts differently than he expects, based on his previous internal generalizations. When he interviews someone, he almost invariably remembers and records an observation that is race-related; for example, that his Jewish grandfather regularly cheated black customers to his store.
I found the persistent hammering of racial themes to be relentless and depressing. Not depressing in terms of the difficult circumstances facing the family; that I could handle. I found it more depressing that the author emerged from his childhood seeing almost anything and everything through this prism, clouding others' true individualities, filtering away the presentation of more penetrating ideas. At the end, the author claims that his book is about love, not about race, but that's not the impression given for 200 pages.
It has been observed to me by another person who read the book that, although the race consciousness depicted within it is not nearly as prevalent in the world through which we ourselves move, that this doesn't mean it wasn't very real in the world of the author and his mother. I accept that, and accept that there was (and is) real racism with which they must contend. But it is equally clear from the writing that a great deal of the race-obsession is a function of the author's obsessions, as opposed to his environment.
And, while I hesitate to admit it, admirable though the subject was, there were times when I found her a bit of a twit. She uproots her family and moves to Wilmington almost at the drop of a hat. She can't be bothered learning how to drive properly. She regularly leaves her kids in a state of unsupervised chaos, relying on older siblings to keep order. She can't really prepare food or keep house (I am not creating a sexist expectation here; she was the only parent in the house). And, though having children is obviously everyone's own personal decision, one has to wonder whether a woman in such difficult economic circumstances exercised an occasional forethought about whether it made sense to bear no fewer then twelve of them.
There is no doubt about the result; twelve accomplished, remarkable children, the mother's true legacy. But after reading of her many quirks and the environment in which they grew up, I'm not as convinced as the author that the mother's values and child-rearing skills are solely responsible for the good result. It seems equally likely, based on the descriptions of their chaotic home environment, that passing on some good genes had at least as much to do with it.
Still, the mother did try to impart important values to her children. At one point in the book, the young author asks his mother what color he is. She retorts that he's a human being and if he doesn't focus on his education, he'll be a nobody. One wishes the author had internalized that lesson a little bit better.
Shades of gray January 24, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I feel almost silly adding another review when others have said so much already. So, I'll keep it brief. This is an extremely well written book. It flows seamlessly back and forth between time periods and generations until, before you know it, it's over. And, contrary to what some others have written, it is not obsessed with race. Race, as McBride presents his struggles, can be seen as a metaphor for exclusion. McBride's experience brings to life the consequences of the unfortunate human tendency to separate people into in-groups and out-groups, and to denigrate those who belong to any out-group. Most of all, this is a heartwarming story about the power of love to overcome trauma. I recommend it to everyone, and most especially to anyone who has ever felt that they didn't fit into someone else's dichotomous box.
A profound reading experience March 18, 2006
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
For nearly 10 years now, I have given this book to others as a gift, especially those who are interested in profound, moving literature. This book FLOWS and speaks to all of us: black, white, Jewish, gentile, young, old. I recommend this book to those I work with, to my son's high school English teachers, to anyone who is searching for a satisfying, uplifting experience. I say experience rather than 'book.' To me, reading this book is an experience. I pull it out and re-read it every year. It encourages me to face hardships, to count my blessings and to recognize that all of us are put on earth for a reason. Thank you, James McBride, for a book that has become a cornerstone in my life.
An extraordinary story July 6, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
James McBride creates a not-very-flattering portrait of race in America in this outstanding story of his white Jewish mother and black father and stepfather. Ruth McBride was born an Orthodox Jew who came to America at the age of two. The product of a traditional, arranged, loveless marriage, her family lived in the South, and from a young age she found warmth and love only in the black community. As a teenager she left home for New York, married a black man, raised 8 children, founded a church in Brooklyn, and married again as a widow and raised another 4.
Her Jewish family cut her off as if dead, and so too was her Jewish self dead, as she lived in the black community in a white world that treated her with contempt and treated her children as black. And that was fine with James, who was deeply ashamed to have a white mother, at least until he became an adult and realized her extraordinary strength and courage and faith. It took him 14 years to unearth her story, and when published 10 years ago, this memoir was a literary sensation.
Ruth had the good fortune to marry two extraordinary black men, and her Christian faith carried her past all the obstacles society created in the post-WWII period. White society scorned her for marrying black men, and her children were segregated as all other black children at that time--there has never been a "half-white" category in America. But Ruth did not let this stop her from sending her children to the best schools possible, and all 12 today are college graduates, with a good number of doctors thrown in for good measure. Throughout she was accepted and supported by her black neighbors and friends and churches. We may balk now reading of her iron discipline and corporal punishment, but it was always tempered by the love of both a mother and father. We may wonder if it would have been better for her to be open about her past with her children, but she transformed herself from Ruchel Shilsky to Ruth McBride as a matter of survival. This is an extraordinary story of an admirable woman's survival in the less than admirable society of the time, and well worth your time.
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