PEARL'S SECRET: A Black Man's Search for His White Family

Shortly after the end of the Civil War, Laura Brumley, a young, educated mulatto ex-slave entered into a "loving" involvement with A.J. Beaumont, a white overseer on a plantation in Louisiana. A photo of Beaumont, his crinkled newspaper obituary and his deathbed note acknowledging his mixed-race daughter, Pearl, were passed down as heirlooms on the African-American side of the family. These fragile links were the end of the story until Brumley's great-great grandson Henry, associate professor of journalism at U.C.–Berkeley, used his investigative skills to try to locate his white relations. The more Henry searched, the more he examined his own troubled life as a black man, which he retells in a stream-of-consciousness style that is exasperatingly repetitious. But buried in the flashbacks and flash-forwards are some gems. For example, he recalls his mother telling him about reciting "I pledge allegiance to the rag," a common utterance among African-American schoolchildren during the days of Jim Crow that's rarely been mentioned in other memoirs. Henry's recollections of his Princeton days—of being alienated from both the preppy Beach Boys culture and the lingo-speaking fans of the O'Jays—are quite moving. He piques further interest by briefly mentioning his grandmother's 1920s trip to the Soviet Union, where she had heard blacks were treated as well as whites. In the end, Henry succeeds in his mission, but the emotional insights this memoir brings are the reward received, for both author and reader. Photos not seen by PW. Agent, Jill Kneerim. (May)

Forecast:Readers who enjoyed James McBride's The Color of Water may find Henry's tale equally compelling. Additionally, his journalistic connections (the book mentions many Washington Post writers, and the jacket has a plug from Bob Woodward), may help the book garner high-profile media attention.