Real American

Reviews

“A bold, impassioned memoir that . . . riveting[ly] and deeply . . . sheds fresh light on race and discrimination in American society.”
—Publishers Weekly

"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." - AudioFile

“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

“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

“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

“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 ...”
—Publishers Weekly

“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