Finding Home - by Denise Nicholas (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A poignant, revelatory memoir from acclaimed novelist and actor Denise Nicholas that offers an episodic exploration of her multifaceted life, delving intimately into themes of artistic self-invention, race, and grief.

Long before writing her acclaimed novel Freshwater Road, or her career as a path-breaking TV and film star, Denise Nicholas was a middle-class Black girl growing up in 1950s Detroit, struggling to decipher her family's profound secrets. She loved Detroit's vibrant culture despite the harsh realities of its racial segregation, which deeply influenced her perspective on identity. In her early twenties, she dropped out of the University of Michigan to tour the Deep South with the Free Southern Theater at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, a path that ultimately ignited her lifelong commitment to social justice and activism. A few short years later she would launch from stage work to meteoric national fame as a series lead on the groundbreaking ABC-TV show Room 222, a role that earned her three consecutive Golden Globe nominations.

With eloquence, vulnerability, and resolve, Nicholas mines her six-decade journey through TV and film stardom the complexities of her three marriages, and her reconstituting her creative life to become a celebrated novelist, reflecting on the personal, professional, and societal pressures that buffeted her throughout. Constructed of episodic reflections from both personal and professional high points and low points of her life, Nicholas navigates the intersections of love and identity, exploring how her experiences in Hollywood shaped her understanding of success, intimacy, and commitment. Her narrative is rich with anecdotes from her career in Hollywood, as an actor and, later, a successful screenwriter for television and eventually a novelist, providing a backdrop to the struggles and achievements that marked her path. She outspokenly discusses the challenges she faced as a trailblazing actress of color, shedding light on the systemic barriers and biases within the entertainment industry.

But at the deepest level, this memoir is a heartfelt exploration of grief, as Nicholas recounts the profound losses--including the unsolved, targeted slaying of her sister, the telling of which occupies the center of her story--that have shaped her. Her reflections on mourning and resilience paint a vivid, moving portrait of how to journey through healing to new dimensions of self-discovery. Through her powerful, stylish, and evocative storytelling, Nicholas not only chronicles her own remarkable life but also provides a resonant narrative of what it means to live, work, and succeed as a Black woman in America over the past half-century.

Review Quotes

Praise for Denise Nicholas's Freshwater Road:

"The best work of fiction about the civil rights movement since Ernest J. Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman." --The Washington Post

"Breathtaking. . . Perhaps the best work of fiction ever done about the civil rights movement." --Newsday (New York)

"What a wonderful surprise Denise Nicholas's first novel is. Her textured characters unfold against the background of an historic encounter that was destined to change America forever." --Sidney Poitier

"Hypnotic. . . [Nicholas] conjures an insidious mood of fear and writes with lyrical prose." --Entertainment Weekly

"Tensions both physical and psychic inform Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas, which may well be the finest novel about the civil-rights era. . . . Perhaps Nicholas's experience as an actress is what endowed her writing with its deep understanding of plot and character. Whatever the source of her talents, in my reading experience, few books have so artfully entwined a coming-of-age saga with the awakening of moral conscience." --Samuel G. Freedman, The Daily Beast

"In Freshwater Road, Denise Nicholas brings alive all the colors and emotions of the civil rights movement during the perilous adventure that was Freedom Summer." --Janet Fitch, White Oleander

"Sometimes gorgeous, sometimes terrifying, this novel marks the debut of a talented writer." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Vividly depicts the cost of activism. . . Nicholas has a genuine way with words, a keen grasp of visual and emotional metaphor, and the novel illuminates the internal consequences of institutionalized racism and the often suppressed connections between South and North." --Chicago Tribune

"With spare, powerful sentences that quietly sneak up on you, Nicholas smoothly transports us to the not-so-distant past for a reflection of the civil rights movement's subtle triumphs." --Essence

"Extraordinary. . . Impassioned prose, full-blooded characters, and rich feeling." --PAGES

"A lovely and arresting novel about class and race in the South." --Time Out Chicago

"Offers a sensitive and absorbing story of a young woman coming of age emotionally and racially." --Vanessa Bush, Booklist

"A finely realized and written novel." --Detroit Free Press

"Accomplished. . . . Nicholas appears poised to have an equally successful second career as a novelist." --Chicago Reader

"Vivid, intricate, and powerful; a book that will make you squirm with discomfort and dread, breathe with relief, then gasp with outrage. The characters in this book are so real and the events of that Mississippi summer are so well described that I almost felt like I was reading a history book instead of a novel. Pick up a copy of this incredible book. If you ask me what one novel to read this winter, Freshwater Road gets my vote." --Terri Schlichenmeyer, syndicated columnist

About the Author

Denise Nicholas is a writer and actress who has starred in numerous films and TV shows over the past 55 years, including Room 222, for which she earned three Golden Globe nominations, and In the Heat of the Night, for which she also wrote several episodes. She is the author of Freshwater Road (Agate Bolden, 2005). She lives in Los Angeles.