G-Man
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 Posted: Mon 17 Nov 2008 18:52 Post subject: Twilight People: One Man's Journey to Find His Roots |
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Twilight People: One Man's Journey to Find His Roots
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
When David Houze and his mother escaped apartheid in South Africa for America, a country that represented promise and opportunity, their 1966 arrival in Meridian, Mississippi proved dispiriting: the "grinding poverty" and resolute segregation that greeted them did not appear too different from that which they fled. Houze begins by exploring his rural Mississippi childhood as he tried to understand his identity-a pale-skinned "coloured" boy from Africa-during the height of the civil rights movement. Amid the chaos of the fight for racial equality, Houze found himself being treated as-and consequently viewing himself as-an anomaly, a "white nigger" with "African blood and guts." In 1992, Houze returned to South Africa, as the country struggled to form a democracy, to explore his country's changes and reunite with his three sisters. With White power crumbling and the Black majority demanding representation, Houze finds "in-between" people struggling to find their place. Those classified as Coloureds received slightly better treatment than Indians and Blacks, which forced them to grapple with a new kind of unjustice-the kind that worked, however slightly, in their favor Houze'graceful memoir is a sensitive look into racial history in Africa and America, as well as a riveting personal narrative. 8 pages of b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* The parallels between the civil rights movement in the South and the antiapartheid struggle continue to be the focus of many political histories. Journalist Houze not only reports on those connections; he has been there, in both countries. Born in South Africa, he left as a baby in 1966 with his "Coloured" (mixed-race) mother, who dreamed of a better life with her black American husband. Houze grew up poor in Meridien, Mississippi, at the time of fierce struggle. Then he returned to South Africa, to find his siblings and himself, initially in 1992, when the country was on the verge of its first democratic election, and again in 2004. The blending of the personal with the political is never slick metaphor in his account; it is fact. His own family story is a gripping way to fill in the social history and bring it close. Houze has also read the best histories and memoirs about both countries' struggles, all clearly documented in the source notes. He visits John Vorster prison in Johannesburg, the site of unspeakable atrocity, and it reminds him of the murder of Emmett Till. With South Africa undergoing revolutionary change, his eloquent observation of the contemporary scene is right on the mark. Just as compelling is the discussion of his mixed-race identity, in South Africa and here. He is honest about the history of class consciousness and shame yet celebratory about being the "archetype" of multiracialism. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"David Houze is a persistent and brave explorer. Twilight People investigates the darkest heart of racism in America and South Africa, and is as painful as it is deeply revealing about the complexities of racial identity on two continents." - Neil Henry, author of Pearl's Secret: A Black Man's Search for His White Family "In this up-close-and-personal account of the parallel struggles for racial justice in Mississippi and South Africa, David Houze weaves a fascinating tale that has nowhere been told. The book is remarkable for its capacity to chronicle the larger history of three critical decades of the 20th century resistance and mobilization, while skillfully deploying the author's own personal story to illuminate the human texture of apartheid in two nations." - Troy Duster, author of Backdoor to Eugenics"
Product Description
David Houze was twenty-six and living in a single room occupancy hotel in Atlanta when he discovered that three little girls in an old photo he'd seen years earlier were actually his sisters. The girls had been left behind in South Africa when Houze and his mother fled the country in 1966, at the height of apartheid, to start a new life in Meridian, Mississippi, with Houze's American father. This revelation triggers a journey of self-discovery and reconnection that ranges from the shores of South Africa to the dirt roads of Mississippi--and back. Gripping, vivid, and poignant, this deeply personal narrative uses the unraveling mystery of Houze's family and his quest for identity as a prism through which to view the tumultuous events of the civil rights movement in Mississippi and the rise and fall of apartheid in South Africa. Twilight People is a stirring memoir that grapples with issues of family, love, abandonment, and ultimately, forgiveness and reconciliation. It is also a spellbinding detective story--steeped in racial politics and the troubled history of two continents--of one man's search for the truth behind the enigmas of his, and his mother's, lives.
From the Inside Flap
"In this wrenching yet redemptive family history, David Houze plunges into the tangle of race, class, and color on two continents. His quest solves a mystery at the center of his own heritage, and for the rest of us provides a memorable rumination on identity itself."--Samuel Freedman, author of Upon This Rock: The Miracles of a Black Church
"David Houze is a persistent and brave explorer. Twilight People investigates the darkest heart of racism in America and South Africa, and is as painful as it is deeply revealing about the complexities of racial identity on two continents."--Neil Henry, author of Pearl's Secret: A Black Man's Search for His White Family
"In this up-close-and-personal account of the parallel struggles for racial justice in Mississippi and South Africa, David Houze weaves a fascinating tale that has nowhere been told. The book is remarkable for its capacity to chronicle the larger history of three critical decades of the 20th century resistance and mobilization, while skillfully deploying the author's own personal story to illuminate the human texture of apartheid in two nations."--Troy Duster, author of Backdoor to Eugenics
About the Author
David Houze is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism. |
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