African American Biography & Memoir, Journalism, News & Media Biography, African American Biography

Parallel Time: Growing up in Black and White

Name: Parallel Time: Growing up in Black and White
Author: Brent Staples
ISBN: 9780380724758

by Brent Staples

Write a review

Overview

In this evocative memoir, Brent Staples poses some compelling questions: Where does the family end the self begin? What do we owe our families and what do we owe ourselves? What part of the past is a gift and what part a shackle?

As the oldest son among nine children, Brent grew up in a small industrial town near Philadelphia. Scholarship opportunities pulled him out of the black world where he had grown up into a world largely defined by whites. Meanwhile, as the industries that supported his hometown failed, and drug dealing rushed in to fill the economic void, news of arrests and premature deaths among Brent's childhood friends underscored his precarious perch in a mostly white environment. The death of his younger brother — a cocaine dealer murdered by one of his "clients" — propelled Brent into a reconsideration of his childhood that offers vivid portraits of family values that supported, pressures that tore apart, and the appeal and pain of living as an adult in a world that was literally and figuratively miles away from the one he knew as a child.

The murder of his younger brother causes Staples to reconsider his childhood and coming-of-age. A vivid portrait of family and place, values and pressures, the appeal and pain of entering a predominantly white world, and the strengths and vulnerabilities of the African American world Staples grew away from.

Synopsis

New York Times Book Review

Poignant...rewarding...vividly realized...A writer of edifying elegance...Staples reveals a resolutely distinct voice as he negotiates the treacherous shoals of racial identity in American culture.

About the Author, Brent Staples

Brent Staples received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Chicago. Currently a member of the editorial board of the New York Times, he has been an assistant metropolitan editor of the Times, an editor of the New York Times Book Review, and a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Chicago Sun-Times

Refreshing...ironic...affecting....a superbly crafted memoir.

Chicago Tribune

An elegant, affecting memoir....Staples has turned his alienation to powerful account, bringing us living proof that this society cannot afford to bet its future on the laws of chance.

Entertainment Weekly

A painfully honest account of the conflicts and choices caused by growing up and away from one's roots. Staples's book is less an autobiography than a meditation on a universal question: what makes us who we are?

New York Times Book Review

Poignant...rewarding...vividly realized...A writer of edifying elegance...Staples reveals a resolutely distinct voice as he negotiates the treacherous shoals of racial identity in American culture.

Philadelphia Inquirer

A powerful, personal memoir from an extraordinary storyteller....The reader is priviliged to share the inner turmoil, and the startling eloquence, of a man bent on saving himself.

Publishers Weekly

In spare, affecting prose, Staples, a member of the editorial board of the New York Times , here recalls his hardscrabble boyhood in the mostly black world of Chester, Pa., and the pains and privileges of later joining a middle-class, whiter milieu. The oldest son among nine children, the author feared his violent alcoholic father but gained a nascent writer's sensibility from the kitchen rhythms of his mother and her friends. As if reflecting the dislocations of his 1960s youth, Staples sketches numerous fragments: his older sister slipping toward delinquency, the challenge by bullies at a new school, the untimely shooting death of his cousin. With wry hindsight he recalls his Black Power activism before he took advantage of a scholarship to a local college and won a graduate scholarship to the University of Chicago. The book ends with the first success of Staples's journalism career, which is paralleled with the death of his drug-dealing brother Blake in 1983. He observes resonantly that chance and complexity, not a simple morality tale, must be factored into any accounting for their divergent paths. (Feb.)

Library Journal

Staples forcefully relates a harrowing tale of growing up in a world of violence and uncertainty in the black neighborhoods of Chester, Pennsylvania. Because of his father's drinking problem, rent payments were always in arrears, so his large family was constantly moving from one apartment to another. Schooling was haphazard. Somehow, almost through a fluke, he went on to college, earned an advanced degree, and thus gained entry to a professional world dominated by white people. This book, reflecting his early experiences and his current ambivalence about his loyalties and sense of self, were triggered by the murder of his brother, who had become a drug dealer. Writing in the street language of his youth, he describes some of the strengths of black society before the infiltration of the drug culture. This powerful account is recommended for most collections.-- Carol R. Glatt, VA Medical Ctr. Lib., Philadelphia

School Library Journal

YA-The story of a man's journey from his childhood in a mixed-race factory town to a position on the editorial staff of The New York Times. The oldest of nine children born to a hard-drinking man and saintly woman, Staples describes how his early years were marked by frequent moves to avoid eviction, hijinks with neighborhood pals, and a keen sense of observation. In high school, although eligible for college prep courses, he elected the safer bet, commercial studies. A chance meeting with a professor at Penn Morton College, who arranged for his entry into an academic boot camp, expanded his opportunities. Employment in the predominantly white world of journalism followed his advanced degree. Students will empathize with the universal adolescent concerns and experiences, and witness Staples's anger at prejudice he encounters as well as his angst as he strives to understand the world and his place in it.-Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA