Surviving the White Gaze - by Rebecca Carroll (Paperback)

About the Book

"A stirring and powerful memoir from black cultural critic Rebecca Carroll recounting her struggle to overcome a completely white childhood in order to forge her identity as a black woman in America"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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)

About the Author

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 so