Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History

by Camille T. Dungy Narrated by Allyson Johnson

Overview

As a working mother whose livelihood as a poet-lecturer depended on travel, Camille T. Dungy crisscrossed America with her infant, then a toddler. As they travel, Dungy is intensely aware of how they are seen, not just as mother and child but as black females. With a poet's eye, she celebrates the particular in the universal, such as a child's acquisition of language and what to pack in a diaper bag. At the same time, her horizons are wide, as history shadows her steps everywhere she goes: from the San Francisco of settlers' and investors' dreams to the slave-trading ports of Ghana; from snow-white Maine to a festive, yet threatening, bonfire in the Virginia pinewoods.



With exceptional candor, Dungy explores our inner and outer worlds-the multitudinous experiences of mothering, illness, and the ever-present embodiment of race-finding fear and trauma but also mercy, kindness, and community. Penetrating and generous, far-seeing and intimate, her prose is an essential guide for a troubled land.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Some essay collections challenge your intellect, others break open your heart, a few grant a new way of seeing, and occasionally one sings a song you feel in your bones. It’s rare that a collection hits all four notes, yet Camille T. Dungy's first collection of essays. . . does so with impressive range, ambition, and timeliness. . . . May all of us be as fearless and honest in our self-examination as Dungy is here, and may more essays challenge us to become compassionate, wide-awake humans—for ourselves, our children, and the strangers we encounter."— Cate Hodorowicz The Rumpus

"Motherhood memoirs make up a robust though almost entirely white genre. Camille T. Dungy’s evocative debut . . . meticulously parses the ways in which work, travel and creativity affect black motherhood, and in doing so provides a much needed perspective."— Anjali Enjeti Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Part memoir, part travelogue, part parental guide, this book is a stunningly beautiful love letter from a mother to her daughter to help her daughter embrace the world she lives in, to introduce her to her ancestors, and prepare her for the future."— Edwidge Danticat, author of The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story

"Dungy’s prose is like the landscapes she has known: rich, fertile, astoundingly beautiful, and also singular and exacting. What better a voice to explore the rapture of motherhood, the fraught vulnerability of living in a black body, and the beautiful intimacy that can arise between near strangers? Guidebook to Relative Strangers is world-enlarging and indispensable."— Tracy K. Smith, US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Life on Mars

"An elegant, meditative love letter to the life of the writer, the natural world, histories from which we cannot nor should not extricate ourselves, black womanhood, black motherhood, and the unabashed joy of raising up a black girl… [A]s intimate as it is expansive."— Roxane Gay, author of Difficult Women

"Calm, lucid, and sturdy, Dungy’s account stares down the effects and unevenly distributed burdens of our shared past and present with clear eyes, full heart, and the kind of dedication to fact, feeling, and history that we truly need now, as ever."— Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts

"In stirring and insightful prose, the wonder of our shared journey is spelled out on these pages. The music from Dungy’s pen is as intimate as the blues and as epic as a symphony."— Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow

"For Dungy, history is a shared root system that nourishes her vital imagination. Guidebook to Relative Strangers is a balm for the American soul."— Gregory Pardlo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Digest

"Dungy’s
voice engages as a conversation with a dear friend might, with affection for
the possibilities revealed in human relationships. These gorgeous essays are
essential and deeply compelling. "— Wendy S. Walters, author of Multiply/Divide

Kirkus Reviews

2017-04-02
A poet explores her experiences as a mother, teacher, black woman, and "conscientious outsider."In this frank, revealing, and often lyrical memoir, Dungy (Creative Writing/Colorado State Univ.; Trophic Cascade, 2017, etc.) chronicles her travels across the country with her daughter, recording her thoughts on their place in American society. Whether she ponders why so many people are startled by the volume of her infant daughter's hair, the history of the Civil War as it related to the rural farmers of Maine, or the loss of place and home when developers built behind her childhood home, the author's voice rings out loud and clear. As a black woman who travels in circles that are often nearly all white, she has fears that others may never perceive. When she injured her ankle while hiking, she fretted about whether her weight was too much for the men in her group to handle in making it back down the mountain. When she flies, she has to rely on strangers to help with her stuff and her child, and she worries about who will take care of her daughter while she is teaching. On a powerful visit to Ghana to see the slave-holding pens along the coast, she considers her daughter's inability to pay attention to the horrific history all around them. Dungy also discusses the many surprises of being a mother, including the joys of nursing and watching her child learn new skills, which has opened her own eyes to new wonders. Each essay flows smoothly into the next, and they are all interlinked with themes of race, fear, joy, and love, bringing readers eye to eye with the experiences of being a black female poet, lecturer, mother, and woman. Forthright, entertaining, often potent essays that successfully intertwine personal history and historical context regarding black and white in America.

2017 National Book Critics Circle Award, Short-listed
2018 Colorado Book Award, Short-listed

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171360405
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	06/23/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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