…the pacing of Real American, staccato at times, rushed and frenetic at others, infuses the book with a lyricism that hums with the frustration and sadness [Lythcott-Haims] felt growing up what she calls "un-Black"…What sets [the] book apart from others is that she doesn't seem to be contextualizing the experience for white peopleshe's working through the issues that she's faced all her life, unpacking them in an effort to isolate and extract them, as a surgeon might inspect a cancerous cluster of cells before excision. The most moving parts of Real American come when Lythcott-Haims stares unflinchingly at her own self-loathing, writing about the racist encounters of her childhood that convinced her from a young age that there was something inherently wrong with being black…Lythcott-Haims never comes to a tidy conclusion about how to view race relations in America, because there isn't one. By allowing us to witness a woman coming to terms with herself, and finding nothing but pride and love there, she offers a blueprint for how others might try to do the same.
The New York Times Book Review - Jenna Wortham
06/26/2017 Lythcott-Haims (How to Raise an Adult) has written a bold, impassioned memoir that explores the emotional and cultural divide imposed by American racism on people of mixed race. Born in 1967 to an African-American father and a white British mother, she was proud that her parents “broke the rules” despite the racial sneers and ridicule she experienced growing up in Palisades, N.Y., and Madison, Wis. However, the steadfast support of her loving mother and of her father, an accomplished physician appointed by President Carter as assistant surgeon general in 1977, couldn’t prepare the insecure, mixed-race teen for navigating a white world (“I don’t think of you as Black. I think of you as normal,” says one high school friend while the two were watching Gone with the Wind). Upon graduating from Stanford University (she would serve as dean of freshmen there years later), Lythcott-Haims married a white Jewish man and gave birth to “quadroon children,” which further complicated her quest for self-understanding. Later, she became empowered through her determination not to let hate define her or the lives of her children. Riveting and deeply felt, Lythcott-Haims’s memoir sheds fresh light on race and discrimination in American society. (Oct.)
"Lythcott-Haims never comes to a tidy conclusion about how to view race relations in America, because there isn’t one. By allowing us to witness a woman coming to terms with herself, and finding nothing but pride and love there, she offers a blueprint for how others might try to do the same.”—The New York Times Book Review “In daringly original prose . . . [Lythcott-Haims] wades defiantly into the tricky waters of racism and its devastating impact on building institutions and undermining individuals.”—Essence Magazine “A necessary and timely read for anyone looking not just to learn but to understand.”— Glamour "A thoroughly riveting poetic memoir of a mixed-race woman questioning her identity and place in American life and culture. Genuinely inspiring."—San Francisco Chronicle “A bold, impassioned memoir that . . . riveting[ly] and deeply . . . sheds fresh light on race and discrimination in American society.”— Publishers Weekly "A candid, deeply personal look at race relations within a family and a nation, and a story that will feel familiar to anyone who hungers for a sense of belonging."—Chicago Tribune “A powerful memoir of poetic prose.” —The Baltimore Sun “[A] brilliant, unflinching portrayal of what it’s been like . . . to grow up in a racially paralyzed America. . . . [Lythcott-Haims] shares in Real American a story that will connect with anyone whose mothers or fathers came of age in harsher circumstances. We're torn between celebrating the raw realities of their journeys—or hiding from them. She's managed to fit the whole messy, beautiful truth between two covers.” —Forbes “Breaks the silence on what it means to grow up mixed-race in America. Her spare but powerful prose has an emotional rawness that will profoundly resonate with all readers and help many feel a little less alone.”— Heidi W. Durrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky “A cathartic and bold truth-telling.”— Danzy Senna, bestselling author of Caucasia and New People “A powerful, honest book that should be required reading for everyone.”—Anita Amirrezvani, author of The Blood of Flowers and Equal of the Sun “Real American is beautifully written, heartbreaking, and a real page-turner. I couldn't put this extraordinary memoir down. An essential read for anyone who wishes to understand the conversation about racial injustice.”—Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Mambo in Chinatown and Girl in Translation “To write with such an open heart about race and Blackness takes great courage. To do so in prose that is at once elegant and raw takes great talent.”—Ayelet Waldman, bestselling author of Bad Mother and of A Really Good Day “Real American is a courageous, achingly honest meditation on what it means to come to consciousness as a mixed race child and adult in a nation where Black lives weren't meant to matter.”—Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness "In the vein of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me and Claudia Rankine's Citizen , Julie Lythcott-Haims's Real American fuses autobiography with politics, showing how the sinister nature of racism (institutional and otherwise) scars even those who may pass as unaffected. . . . [Lythcott-Haims takes] a combative stance toward anyone who thinks they are on firm footing regarding race, and the book is all the better for it."—Shelf Awareness “A true achievement . . . so much more than a personal memoir . . . [Lythcott-Haims] channels the shrewdness of Eula Biss and the compassion of Ta-Nehisi Coates.”— Lee Daniel Kravetz, international bestselling author of Strange Contagion and Supersurvivors "In a text that resembles a memoir, a prose poem, and an album of verbal snapshots, a writer from a mixed racial background chronicles her journey—and battle—to understand her racial identity . . . Many potent and painful reminders that we have a long, long way to go regarding race and identity." — Kirkus Reviews “Powerful . . . a memoir that [illuminates] the psychic cost of racism to those who are cast as ‘other.’ The journey of self-healing and the empowerment . . . is a story of triumph from which all of us can learn.”—Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Can We Talk About Race? “Stands for, and stands up for, Americans who are questioned, confronted, disregarded and unnerved by our citizen country . . . Real American will be one of those books that is passed from hand to hand, with passages marked where readers find strong words that speak truth.”— A.J. Verdelle, author of The Good Negress “Shows once again, plainly and unforgettably, that if you are Black in America, it does not matter who you are, racism will come knocking. Lythcott-Haims . . . Real American is the story of that insidious harm and of a woman who became alert to the American racism within herself and fought back. Real American is not only an excellent, satisfying read but a book that can help us “stay woke”—as we must—to the sometimes stealthy and always life-threatening danger of racism, so that we all can fight back.” —Barbara Lee, U.S. Representative and author of Renegade for Peace and Justice: A Memoir of Political and Personal Courage “A memoir isn’t worth the paper on which it is printed if it is not, first and foremost, brutally honest. Julie Lythcott-Haims’ memoir, Real American , is not only worth the paper on which it is written, it is priceless. Real American is the humorous and heartbreaking story of the coming of age of an American woman born to a Black father and a White mother. Lythcott-Haims writes movingly and courageously of her struggle to figure out to which race she belongs . . . It isn’t easy being biracial in this country; Real American compellingly and honestly tells you why.”—LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, retired California judge and former Vice Provost at Stanford University “A poignant, sensitive, and often times painful personal account of growing up as a biracial person in color-conscious, contemporary America. This gem of a book provides compelling stories about how race permeates the American psyche and how it so heavily weighs on people ‘too white to be black and too black to be white.’”—Albert Camarillo, Professor of American History and founding director of Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity “ . . . No punches pulled. The tortuous path of being and becoming and insisting as we each have a right to be a real American.”—Mary Frances Berry, the Geraldine Segal Professor of American Social Thought, University of Pennsylvania, and former Chairperson United States Commission on Civil Rights “In this raw, accessible exploration of what it is to be truly American, author Julie Lythcott-Haims offers up her lifelong struggle with racial identity and internalized oppression. Her fascinating family—prominent black American father and resilient white British mother, married in newly-independent West Africa—provides a front row to history, while Julie’s journey—like that of so many Civil Rights babies—reveals the limitations of privilege, from getting an Ivy League degree and professional career, to marrying white and American-dreaming in the suburbs. A fearless invitation to the important conversations black and white America needs to be having.”—Faith Adiele, author of Meeting Faith and The Nigerian-Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems “Fierce and emphatic from the first page, Julie Lythcott-Haims’s self-searching memoir unrolls her own relationship to race and its evolving meaning in her world. . . . Throughout the memoir, painful questions ring like ominous bells, hopefully raising alarm for all readers.” —The Improper Bostonian “Written in short, impressionistic, elegant chapters, Real American focuses on the evolution of Lythcott-Haims’s own consciousness, from her grappling with slavery to her thoughts about the Charleston church slayings—and, most interestingly, her own identity.” —The National Book Review
★ 07/01/2017 In this open and revealing memoir, Lythcott-Haims (How To Raise an Adult) faces difficult truths head-on as she explores growing up biracial in the United States. Using powerfully effective prose, the author explains the impacts of racism on her daily life in both small and large ways, its chipping away at her feelings of self-worth. Despite earning multiple degrees from elite institutions, she spends much of her time not feeling good enough, black enough, and white enough. Instead, she feels as if she doesn't belong, wherever she tries to fit in. That is, until she finds a home at Stanford University, first as a student and later as dean of students. Encountering the term mixed for the first time while attending an undergraduate workshop on race, Lythcott-Haims begins to realize that the world is not black or white, as she had spent much of her life believing. As she finally learns self-acceptance, she also sees the importance of bringing others along on that important journey, too. VERDICT A compelling and important addition to any collection of personal narratives by women of color.—Venessa Hughes, Buffalo, NY
An audiobook “read by the author” can be a gamble. A good writer and a good book don’t guarantee a good listen. REAL AMERICAN—written and read by Julie Lythcott-Haims—at first seems to be a familiar story. Lythcott-Haims—biracial and well educated—struggles with negative perceptions of affirmative action, the problem of being biracial in a linear-thinking nation, and even the problem of what to do with her hair. But Lythcott-Haims is not a tragic figure. From the first chapter, she jabs a finger at the listener while issuing an invitation to listen. This is a growth story, one only the writer can deliver. She knows where to place the emotion—in the pride and love she feels for her father and in the pain of what her Midwestern neighbors really thought of the family. This academic has heart. M.P.P. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
DECEMBER 2017 - AudioFile
2017-07-12 In a text that resembles a memoir, a prose poem, and an album of verbal snapshots, a writer from a mixed racial background chronicles her journey—and battle—to understand her racial identity.Lythcott-Haims (How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success, 2015), who holds a variety of academic degrees (including Harvard Law), writes about her girlhood and youth as the daughter of a black father and a white mother. Her father was a very successful man, a doctor who served as an assistant surgeon general, and her mother would earn a doctorate, as well. The author grew up in mostly white neighborhoods, an experience that delayed her determination to define and identify herself as a black woman. In a series of numbered sections whose lengths vary from a few pages to a few words, Lythcott-Haims tells not only the story of her life and considerable accomplishments, but also about current—and relatively current—issues, from the elections of Presidents Obama and Trump to the spate of police shootings of young black men. Her son is now a teen, and she, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, to whom she refers several times, worries deeply about his safety. Occasionally, the author offers lines of poetry, especially at the conclusion of a section, and her verse is blunt and stark: "We continue to try to forgive. / To live." The author also poignantly describes the assorted indignities she has endured, from attending an event at a child's school where she saw characters in blackface to resisting a Stanford colleague, a woman who fondled her hair in a meeting. She also writes affectionately about her white husband of many years—though she wonders at times what it would have been like to be married to a black man. Many potent and painful reminders that we have a long, long way to go regarding race and identity.