cover image Repossessing Ernestine: A Granddaughter Uncovers the Secret History of Her American Family

Repossessing Ernestine: A Granddaughter Uncovers the Secret History of Her American Family

Marsha Hunt. HarperCollins Publishers, $24 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-06-017443-9

This compelling memoir by Hunt, an African American actress and writer (Free), reads like an edge-of-your-seat mystery. After learning from a cousin that her grandmother, Ernestine, who was committed to an insane asylum in the 1920s, was still alive at the age of 94, Hunt decided to find her and uncover her past. Ernestine, as described to the author, had been light-skinned with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was the daughter of a black mother and an unknown father and was married with three children when she was institutionalized by her husband, an African American minister. Defying family members who preferred to keep her whereabouts a secret, Hunt rescued Ernestine from a rundown nursing home. Although Hunt was unable to discover why Ernestine spent 50 years behind bars, she suspects the reason may have had more to do with racism and sexism than insanity. Photos not seen by PW. $40,000 ad/promo; author tour. (June)