Black White and Jewish

Autobiography of a Shifting Self

By: Rebecca Walker

Narrated by: Rebecca Walker

The Civil Rights movement brought author Alice Walker and lawyer Mel Leventhal together, and in 1969 their daughter, Rebecca, was born. Some saw this unusual copper-colored girl as an outrage or an oddity; others viewed her as a symbol of harmony, a triumph of love over hate. But after her parents divorced, leaving her a lonely only child ferrying between two worlds that only seemed to grow further apart, Rebecca was no longer sure what she represented. In this book, Rebecca Leventhal Walker attempts to define herself as a soul instead of a symbol and offers a new look at the challenge of personal identity, in a story at once strikingly unique and truly universal.

Critic reviews

"Compelling."—The Washington Post

"Stunningly honest."—San Francisco Chronicle

"A complex, all-American story."—USA Today

"Walker masterfully illuminates differences between black and white America...A heartbreaking tale of self-creation."—People

"[Walker] offers painful childhood memories of straddling two vastly different cultures—black bohemia and Jewish suburbia—to fashion a cautionary tale about the power of race in shaping identity...[a] highly readable debut."—Entertainment Weekly

"Walker [writes with] elegant, discreet candor...will attract a wealth of well-deserved praise."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A beautifully written meditation on the creation of a woman’s sense of self."—Jane Lazarre, author of Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness

"Powerful...deeply affecting."—Danzy Senna, author of Caucasia

From a child’s perspective

I enjoyed her view of her life as she experienced it, her life, her story.