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The Grace of Silence: A Memoir
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The Grace of Silence: A Memoir
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The Grace of Silence: A Memoir
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The Grace of Silence: A Memoir

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

In the wake of talk of a "postracial" America upon Barack Obama's ascension as president of the United States, Michele Norris, cohost of National Public Radio's flagship program All Things Considered, set out to write, through original reporting, a book about "the hidden conversation" on race that is unfolding nationwide. She would, she thought, base her book on the frank disclosures of others on the subject, but she was soon disabused of her presumption when forced to confront the fact that "the conversation" in her own family had not been forthright.

Norris unearthed painful family secrets that compelled her to question her own self-understanding: from her father's shooting by a Birmingham police officer weeks after his discharge from the navy at the conclusion of World War II to her maternal grandmother's peddling pancake mix as an itinerant Aunt Jemima to white farm women in the Midwest. In what became a profoundly personal and bracing journey into her family's past, Norris traveled from her childhood home in Minneapolis to her ancestral roots in the Deep South to explore the reasons for the "things left unsaid" by her father and mother when she was growing up, the better to come to terms with her own identity. Along the way she discovered how her character was forged by both revelation and silence.

Extraordinary for Norris's candor in examining her own racial legacy and what it means to be an American, The Grace of Silence is also informed by rigorous research in its evocation of time and place, scores of interviews with ordinary folk, and wise observations about evolving attitudes, at once encouraging and disturbing, toward race in America today. For its particularity and universality, it is powerfully moving, a tour de force.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 21, 2010
ISBN9780307748928
Unavailable
The Grace of Silence: A Memoir

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Reviews for The Grace of Silence

Rating: 3.8433739759036145 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I picked this up because I heard Ms. Norris speak at a conference I attended. In this book, she tracks down her family's secret stories that shaped who they were and how segregation in America shaped her whole family. Her father's story is particularly poignant.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Michele Norris's exploration of her family history is a stunning tale of systemic racial injustice, thoroughly researched and reported, but it also raises questions about all family's and their histories: who conceals what facts, and why. Certainly, her book spoke to me not only about her family but about my own immigrant grandparents, whose stories are only partially known. Who decides what will be passed on and what will be hidden? Norris discusses these questions and they have been with me since finishing "The Grace of Silence".
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not as happy as I wanted to be about the book. In some respects, it felt like a very extended NPR essay. The author seemed nearly detached from her own subjects, which is not what she likely intended. That said, her father was especially brought to vivid life here.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is as much a history of the Civil Rights movement following the second World War as Michele tries to discover who her father was as a person after he has died and asks the questions about how society views the black man in their midst. I found myself more involved in the first half of the book, but wanted to see it through.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Michelle Norris tells two stories in this book. One is the story of her family. The tale of how her father had been shot by a Birmingham policeman and her investigation to learn more about that incident forms the backbone of much of the story. The other story is that of segregation in the south and what life was for black people - at least for her family and others like them, and what it was like for white people living in the south during that time. I found it very interesting and I learned things that I did not know. I got this book free as a goodreads review book and I highly recommend it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Michele Norris's book, The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir, provides insight into the lives of her remarkable family. It has been said that in order to know where one is going one has to know where they came from. Even though the author knew her family well, it is what she didn't know about them that is the basic foundation of the book. After her grandmother had died, she learns that her grandmother had worked for Quaker Oats as a "traveling Aunt Jemima" during the 1940's and part of the 1950's. Norris writes "My grandmother's work created a complex legacy for her heirs". It is a legacy worth reading about. After her father's death she is told that he was shot by a white policeman after he returned home to Birmingham, Alabama after serving in WW II. Her commitment to uncovering answers to her questions about the circumstances, as well as her tenacity, is unmistakable. The quest to complete her family history is filled with meaningful and valuable experiences. Research shows her father's history is intertwined with the events in Birmingham during the same period. Birmingham's history is well documented and the facts are appalling. Norris attention to detail is evident in every page.There are reasons the author's grandmother and father didn't tell her everything and their reasons remain their own. However, the search for these reasons led to this: "There is grace in silence, and power to be had from listening to that which, more often than not, was left unsaid".I found this to be a moving, powerful and an important book. I received this book at no charge through Goodreads First Reads.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thought this was an informative and enjoyable read. The book reads more like a novel and has some very interesting stories about her families history. Michele Norris does a wonderful job telling the story with the right amount of detail and pacing to keep the book moving and focused. I thought the author did a nice job of highlighting race issues in America from both today and during the time in which she grew up. In writing the book, she found stories from her family that were hidden from her such as that of her grandmother playing a part in a traveling Aunt Jemima show to demonstrate how to make pancakes. It seems that her family handled the issues through both grace and hard work. I also found the cultural highlights to be interesting. Early on in the book, Michele highlights stories about bringing individuals from multiple races together to discuss the race issue and how none of the members of the group will address it head on. Note: Reader received a complimentary copy from Good Reads First Reads.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The search for the truth behind a family legend proves to locate Michelle Norris' father in the history of Civil Rights in 1948 when thousands of African-American WWII veterans came home and registered to vote.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wow. Every American should read this book. It's so much more than it appears to be on first look. The reader expects a family memoir, and that is provided along with crucial and little-known American history. This book contains so much elegant wisdom, eloquently told. Further, it asks us to do more, to be more, to understand more.

    I've been listening to Michele Norris on NPR for years without knowing anything about her. You won't find much that's current about her and her work in this book, but you can find that online. What you'll find are precious gems for living well.

    All that said, this book will be loved by mature readers. Immature readers or those who don't accept responsibity nor have an appreciation of the give and take of all kinds of communities, including family, won't get it. But then, I don't think Michele was writing for those audiences.

    She has a remarkable family, full of grace, and they're still passing it down through generations. Oh that we all possessed such grace! Don't miss a word of this book. It's the sort I'll read again and give as gifts.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This memoir by Michele Norris, cohost of NPR's All Things Considered, delivers an informative, compelling view of race relations in the US. In uncovering long hidden instances from her family's past including her father being shot by a policeman and her Grandmother traveling around making pancakes as Aunt Jemima, she explores racism past and present. The book is thoughtful, informative and well researched. The ongoing struggle is also illuminated by examples from our nation's history. In addition to enjoying a well written memoir, I have gained more specific insights than available from my privileged white male perspective.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I'm a little let down by this one. I picked this book up because I saw the author on the Today Show, and was fascinated by the concept of the book--Norris says she "set out to write, through original reporting, a book about 'the hidden conversation' on race that is unfolding nationwide. She would, she thought, base her book on the frank disclosures of others on the subject, but she was soon disabused of her presumption when forced to confront the fact that 'the conversation' in her own family had not been forthright."

    Sounds really interesting, right? And, well, the stories she tells are interesting. But I guess I feel let down that she never really discusses how she is affected by that. Does that newly discovered history change her feelings about racial relations? Does it change...anything? She never really relates any of it to herself. She just shares the stories, guesses at her family members' motivations for hiding them, and then moves on.

    Furthermore, I really would have enjoyed it if she'd written a bit about her intended subject. Once given the background we have about her family, it would have been far more meaningful to read her thoughts on the hidden conversation on race in the social and political climate today.

    The book's OK. Norris is a good storyteller, but not a great writer--things are strung together a big oddly, and chapters end in abrupt places. Honestly, it felt like she could have covered her material far more concisely and efficiently--I kept wondering why we were reviewing certain chunks again and again. It just felt really disorganized. But I also thought it was worth sticking with it. 2.5 stars.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Michele Norris began the journey of discovering her own family experiences as a means to find a way into discussion of race. She felt an unprecedented openness for conversation, yet authentic conversation never really happened with participants still carefully walking around the subject. She attempted conversation in her own family, only to find the same experience. And so her journey began. Her story is well written with her questions, quandaries, insights, and emotions unfolding as they occurred for her. I particularly liked that she couched her journey as a search into the roles of silence and voice.She ends her epilogue with encouragement to ask our own families to "tell me more about yourself." "There is grace in silence, and power to be had from listening to that which, more often than not, was left unsaid."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A memoir by the co-host of National Public Radio’s flagship program All Things Considered. While exploring the hidden conversation on race unfolding throughout America in the wake of President Obama’s election, Michele Norris discovered that there were some secrets within her own family that had been withheld. These revelations—from her father’s shooting by a Birmingham police officer to her maternal grandmother’s job as an itinerant Aunt Jemima in the Midwest—inspired a bracing journey into her family’s past, from her childhood home in Minneapolis to her ancestral roots in the Deep South. Norris, born and raised in Minnesota, tells stories of her parents integrating an all-white neighborhood, which in turn, drove away many of the families who didn't want to live with a Black family. Her parents insistence that the children in the family always act in a certain very correct way outside as to avoid any stereotypes.Her parents divorced and she lived with her father, but both parents provided a lot of parenting for her.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have been listening to Michelle Norris on National Public Radio for so many any ears. I love her voice and delivery but I didn’t know anything about her. I thought this book would be a memoir and it is but it is also much more. I learned so much from her in her book. Michelle Norris talks about the silence that is kept in order to prevent hate and more pain in families. The impact on her family of being black in a time when it was there were so many restrictions, when you were expected to keep your expectations very low if you were black, when interracial marriages were against the law. She opens a window into the black experience. I grew up in a white neighborhood as a child. It was strange, when you are a child and you only see whites in the neighborhood and there are only whites on TV (except for the infamous ‘Amos and Andy show’, you just don’t realize that that there are black children. Michelle Norris found painful family secrets that emotionally scarred her mother and father. Both of them were directly connected the way that blacks were treated after the war. My father was white but I saw my father in hers. Her father, Belvin, was always watching out for people, caring and gentle. He was always advising his children” to keep their eyes on the prize”, to a better job than others. Like having his family get up early than the rest of the neighborhood to shovel the snow off the walks, he wanted to be better. Yet he and his brothers hid something that happened in 1946 so well that even his wife didn’t know about it. Her mother‘s side of the family had her grandmother’s secret. No one talked about it because they thought it was embarrassing. I cannot tell that story without spoiling the book for you. Michelle Norris writes poignantly and with insight. She described an area in the South before and after Integration and the effects of the change. I remember noticing the same changes in the inner city of Indianapolis. What went wrong? What happened? She also talks about her father being a “block buster”. That brought a related memory. My father and I were taking a walk. I must have been eleven years old. We met a man that my father knew. He said “They are coming”. My father asked “Who?” The man said, ‘You know the Negros living in the South”. “We all have to move”. My father said ‘Why?”. That was the beginning of “white flight “in our neighborhood. With Michelle Norris‘s telling of what happened when her family moved in 1961 and my family moved in 1959 in Indianapolis. My father later told me that” We were wrong”. We moved because of fear, fear instilled by people like that man on the street. I think that everyone needs to read this book and reflect on their own experiences growing up and farther back in their family history. This book was received from GoodReads but that in no way influences any part of my review.