New!Websites for Authors

The Perfect Mother's Day Gift 🌸 Tertulia Gift Cards

Tertulia Logo
New!Websites for Authors
The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir, Rebecca Carroll

Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir

Rebecca Carroll

Paperback
Regular price$18.99With free membership trial$9.4950% off your first book+ Free shipping
In Stock– Ships within one business day

Do you recommend this book?

Yes!

No

Critic Reviews

Great

Based on 5 reviews on

BookMarks logo
An Esquire Best Book of 2021 A "gorgeous and powerful" (The New York Times Book Review) memoir from cultural critic Rebecca Carroll recounting her painful struggle to overcome a completely white childhood to forge her identity as a Black woman in America.Rebecca Carroll grew up the only Black person in her rural New Hampshire town. Adopted at birth by artistic parents who believed in peace, love, and zero population growth, her early childhood was loving and idyllic--and yet she couldn't articulate the deep sense of isolation she increasingly felt as she grew older. Everything changed when she met her birth mother, a young white woman, who consistently undermined Carroll's sense of her Blackness and self-esteem. Carroll's childhood became harrowing, and her memoir explores the tension between the aching desire for her birth mother's acceptance, the loyalty she feels toward her adoptive parents, and the search for her racial identity. As an adult, Carroll forged a path from city to city, struggling along the way with difficult boyfriends, depression, eating disorders, and excessive drinking. Ultimately, through the support of her chosen Black family, she was able to heal. "Generous, intimate, searching, and formidable" (The Boston Globe), Surviving the White Gaze is a timely examination of racism and racial identity in America today.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Publish Date: Feb 8th, 2022
  • Pages: 320
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.30in - 5.50in - 1.00in - 0.55lb
  • EAN: 9781982116279
  • Categories: • Personal Memoirs• Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - African American & Black• Ethnic Studies - American - African American & Black Studies

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Heavy: An American Memoir, Kiese Laymon
Book Cover for: The Community: A Memoir, N. Jamiyla Chisholm
Book Cover for: Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America, Michael Eric Dyson
Book Cover for: Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping, Shane McCrae
Book Cover for: The Abolitionist's Journal: Memories of an American Antislavery Family, James D. Richardson
Book Cover for: Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping, Shane McCrae
Book Cover for: Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping, Shane McCrae
Book Cover for: The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict, Austin Reed
Book Cover for: Why Didn't You Tell Me?: A Memoir, Carmen Rita Wong
Book Cover for: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama
Book Cover for: In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma, Bernard Lafayette
Book Cover for: Aftershocks: A Memoir, Nadia Owusu
Book Cover for: The Book of (More) Delights: Essays, Ross Gay
Book Cover for: Asylum: A Memoir & Manifesto, Edafe Okporo
Book Cover for: There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir, Casey Gerald

About the Author

Carroll, Rebecca: - Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and host of the podcasts Come Through with Rebecca Carroll (WNYC Studios), and Billie Was a Black Woman. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Essence, New York magazine, and The Guardian, where she was a regular columnist for two years. A former cultural critic for WNYC, and critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times, she is an editor-at-large for The Meteor media collective, as well as the author of several interview-based books about race in America, including the award-winning Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

More books by Rebecca Carroll

Book Cover for: I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like: The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers (Expanded and Revised Edition), Rebecca Carroll
Book Cover for: Uncle Tom or New Negro?: African Americans Reflect on Booker T. Washington and UP FROM SLAVERY 100 Years Later, Rebecca Carroll

What people are saying

Mentioner image for: Matt Zoller Seitz
Matt Zoller Seitz
@mattzollerseitz
3 years

Matt Zoller Seitz is a film and television critic.

Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir. By Rebecca Carroll (@rebel19), recounting her struggle to overcome a completely white childhood in order to forge her identity as a black woman in America. https://t.co/roujr1Kl3n

twitter.com
Mentioner image for: Rebecca Carroll
Rebecca Carroll
@rebel19
3 years

Rebecca Carroll is a cultural critic, podcast host, and editor at large at The Meteor.

Just a reminder (as if you need one) that @desusnice is a great interviewer. Rebecca Carroll presents Surviving the White Gaze in conversation with D... https://t.co/0Q8NfDkIVR via @YouTube

twitter.com
Mentioner image for: Traci T
Traci T
@biTRACIal
3 years

Traci Thomas is creator of "The Stacks" podcast.

@janlikezhan Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho. What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo. Heavy by Kiese Laymon. Surviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll. Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford.

twitter.com
Show more

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

"Gorgeous and powerful... In nuanced and richly textured scenes, Carroll reminds us how identity, particularly racial identity, is forged in a thousand different moments... Carroll writes with the urgency and persuasiveness of someone whose life is hanging in the balance, and the result is raw and affecting." - The New York Times Book Review "Carroll unearths complex, uncomfortable truths about legacy and parenthood in her memoir... Her voice is generous, intimate, searching, and formidable, her story excavated from her core and delivered with fervor and clarity." - The Boston Globe "Should be required reading."-People "Searing....In this vulnerable and layered meditation on race, adoption, and family, chosen and otherwise, Carroll unspools a poignant story of becoming." - Esquire "A probing, wise investigation of racial identity... The narrative, which reflects the author's 'decades-long, self-initiated rite of passage, ' is a blunt, urgent study of racial identity. A deeply resonant memoir of hard-won authenticity." - Kirkus Review (starred review)

What people are saying

See more