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Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons, and the Search for a Room of My Own
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Product Description
With her trademark wit and insight, Patricia Williams relates stories from the many facets of her life--as a lawyer, scholar, writer, African-American, descendant of slaves, mother, and single, fifty-something woman--always aware of the ironies inherent in situations where her many identities don't conform to societal expectations. The Open House of Williams's imagination takes us on a funny, often provocative, and entertaining journey which includes Oprah, Williams's Aunt Mary who passed as white, her Best White Friend, and tips on how to eat a watermelon without fear of racial judgment.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #898349 in Books
- Published on: 2005-11-01
- Released on: 2005-10-13
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: .52 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
With a résumé that includes degrees from Wellesley and Harvard Law School, a law professorship at Columbia, a column in the Nation and a trio of books, Williams would seem to have enough material to fill several volumes of memoirs. In this thought-provoking, unconventional one, she combines family history with discourses on everything from race, class and slavery's legacy to why she likes O magazine. One chapter, "The Kitchen," begins with an account of buying herself a cappuccino maker, moves to a consideration of homelessness in New York City, continues on to detail her father's heritage, segues to thoughts on why African-Americans give their children unusual names, returns to cappuccino and her sophisticated godmother, makes its way around to trying to cook a turkey and on from there to other food anecdotes and a description of sharing cinnamon toast and steamed milk with her young son. Williams skillfully integrates her probing analyses of social and political issues with riffs on such topics as turning 50 and Michael Jackson's "carving up his face like a paper doily" to form a fluid whole. The book's most affecting parts are the rich, loving stories about Williams's family, from those born into slavery to a grandfather who graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1907.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Williams, a law professor, offers her sharp legal and personal perspectives in this collection of essays on a variety of topics from race, politics, and family to personal identity. She recalls a vivacious great-aunt who was indentured as a young girl, later passed for white and married a wealthy white man, and eventually reclaimed her racial identity and settled into a life as the family's grand dame. Williams' participation in Anna Deveare Smith's Institute for Arts and Civic Dialogue provokes her to recognize her hidden talents and longings. The trend toward minorities, most notably Michael Jackson, using plastic surgery prompts observations about standards of beauty. She reveals more of her personal perspective as the mother of an adolescent adopted son, coping with middle age. Williams notes her admiration for Oprah Winfrey for having accomplished with her magazine and her television show the integration of black folks into regular status. Williams has done something similar with her book, which examines race and sex within the context of mundane life and its simple struggles and observations. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Open House has the freewheeling energy of a private diary that has been shaped by the focused thoughtfulness of a very public-minded soul."--Elle
"Williams's down-to-earth storytelling style, peppered with humor, makes her witty and insightful points accessible and entertaining."--Black Issues Book Review
