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Black chameleon : memory, womanhood, and myth / Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2023Copyright date: ©2023Edition: First editionDescription: ix, 308 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781250827852
  • 125082785X
Other title:
  • Memory, womanhood, and myth
Subject(s):
Contents:
The Women Who Were Blind -- Spare the Rod -- Between the Headache and the Heartthrob -- He May Not Come When You Want Him -- Dusting the Child from Our Bodies -- A Lie Don't Care Who Tells It -- Catching Flies -- Love and the Southern Behemoth -- Fairy Dust and Legends -- Going to Church Don't Make You a Hymnal -- We Got It Honest.
Summary: "Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to--true ones of course--but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away. Mouton writes, "The phrases of my mother and grandmother began to seem less colloquial and more tied to stories that had been lost along the way....Mythmaking isn't a lie. It is our moment to take the privilege of our own creativity to fill in the gaps that colonization has stolen from us. It is us choosing to write the tales that our children pull strength from. It is hijacking history for the ignorance in its closets. This, a truth that must start with the women." Mouton's memoir Black Chameleon is a song of praise and an elegy for Black womanhood. With a poet's gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form"-- Provided by publisher.
List(s) this item appears in: Black History Month for Adults
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library Biography MOUTON, D. M934 Available 33111011046675
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography MOUTON, D. M934 Available 33111010977680
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Winner of the Texas Institute of Letters Carr P. Collins Award for Best Nonfiction
Named one of The Root 's 2023 Best Books by Black Authors

It's often said that Black women are magic, but what if they really are mythological?

Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton yearned for stories she could connect to--true ones, of course, but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. Greek and Roman myths felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins, and tales by Black authors were often rooted too far in the past, a continent away.

Mouton's memoir is a praise song and an elegy for Black womanhood. She tells her own story while remixing myths and drawing on traditions from all over the world: mothers literally grow eyes in the backs of their heads, children dust the childhood off their bodies, and women come to love the wildness of the hair they once tried to tame. With a poet's gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America.

Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form.

The Women Who Were Blind -- Spare the Rod -- Between the Headache and the Heartthrob -- He May Not Come When You Want Him -- Dusting the Child from Our Bodies -- A Lie Don't Care Who Tells It -- Catching Flies -- Love and the Southern Behemoth -- Fairy Dust and Legends -- Going to Church Don't Make You a Hymnal -- We Got It Honest.

"Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to--true ones of course--but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away. Mouton writes, "The phrases of my mother and grandmother began to seem less colloquial and more tied to stories that had been lost along the way....Mythmaking isn't a lie. It is our moment to take the privilege of our own creativity to fill in the gaps that colonization has stolen from us. It is us choosing to write the tales that our children pull strength from. It is hijacking history for the ignorance in its closets. This, a truth that must start with the women." Mouton's memoir Black Chameleon is a song of praise and an elegy for Black womanhood. With a poet's gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form"-- Provided by publisher.

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