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Overview
Marita Golden began her writing career with Migrations of the Heart, a memoir about living with her husband in his native Nigeria. In Migrations, Golden described how it was only with the birth of her child - a son - that she was truly respected, for in that culture males are held in the highest esteem. Ten years later, in SAVING OUR SONS, Golden presents, in essence, her son's story. Having returned to the United States from Nigeria, Marita and Michael, in his teens, find their lives haunted by evidence of a horrifying statistic: The leading cause of death among black males under the age of twenty-one is homicide. The boy who was once surrounded by a warm, loving African family is now looked upon with scorn by many whites and with a deep, aching fear by his fellow African-Americans that his life may be casually taken. Through the story of raising her son against the backdrop of a racially divided society, Golden confronts the causes of the violence that surrounds African-American men and reassesses the legacy of her own generation's struggle for civil rights. She talks to psychologists, writers, and young black men - criminals and scholars both - and explores how single black mothers are often blamed for troubled youth. In this fiercely lyrical and revealing narrative, Golden has created a work of profound and lasting importance: a book that sensitively and uniquely addresses the problems of boyhood and emerging manhood. This is a book in which mothers across the country will see themselves and their sons.In the tradition of Marian Wright Edelman and Alex Kotlowitz, the highly-esteemed author of Migrations of the Heart confronts the facts about the chilling statistic that black males are the most frequent victims of crime and violence--and the media-generated belief that they are responsible for nearly all the crime in America.
Synopsis
Marita Golden began her writing career with Migrations of the Heart, a memoir about living with her husband in his native Nigeria. In Migrations, Golden described how it was only with the birth of her child - a son - that she was truly respected, for in that culture males are held in the highest esteem. Ten years later, in SAVING OUR SONS, Golden presents, in essence, her son's story. Having returned to the United States from Nigeria, Marita and Michael, in his teens, find their lives haunted by evidence of a horrifying statistic: The leading cause of death among black males under the age of twenty-one is homicide. The boy who was once surrounded by a warm, loving African family is now looked upon with scorn by many whites and with a deep, aching fear by his fellow African-Americans that his life may be casually taken. Through the story of raising her son against the backdrop of a racially divided society, Golden confronts the causes of the violence that surrounds African-American men and reassesses the legacy of her own generation's struggle for civil rights. She talks to psychologists, writers, and young black men - criminals and scholars both - and explores how single black mothers are often blamed for troubled youth. In this fiercely lyrical and revealing narrative, Golden has created a work of profound and lasting importance: a book that sensitively and uniquely addresses the problems of boyhood and emerging manhood. This is a book in which mothers across the country will see themselves and their sons.
Publishers Weekly
``As the mother of a black son, I have raised my child with a trembling hand that clutches and leads,'' declares novelist Golden (And Do Remember Me). Though her book title is overbroad and her narrative a bit jagged, she crafts a moving story, mainly of raising her son, Michael, whose middle-class status is no badge of protection from cops or peers. With family ties frayed by mobility, Golden has built a community with friends, but is estranged from her Nigerian ex-husband and wonders if Michael suffers without a father figure. In the course of her tale, Golden marries a man Michael likes, and eventually takes her son to a happy reunion with his father in Lagos, Nigeria. She mixes accounts of Michael's struggles in school and his shoplifting episode with meditations on D.C.'s mean streets and meeting the mothers of sons killed by drugs or convicted of murder. Racism must be dismantled, she knows, but she also argues that the ``first line of defense against racism'' is self-discipline. And, she adds, just as forgiving Michael's father was a vital act of motherhood for her, black men and women must practice forgiveness of each other in order to help save their community. (Jan.)