In the Country of Women

One of NPR’s Best Books of the Year ΓÇ£StraightΓÇÖs memoir is a lyric social history of her multiracial clan in Riverside that explores the bonds of love and survival that bind them,with a particular emphasis on the womenΓÇÖs stories . . . The aftereffect of all these disparate stories juxtaposed in a single epic is remarkable. Its resonance lingers for days after reading.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöSan Francisco Chronicle In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern Californianear the desert and the Mexican borderSusan Straighta selfΓÇôproclaimed book nerdand Dwayne Simsan African American basketball playerstarted dating in high school. After collegethey married and drove to AmherstMassachusettswhere Straight met her teacher and mentorJames Baldwinwho encouraged her to write. Once back in Riversideat driveway barbecues and fish fries with the largecloseΓÇôknit Sims familyStraightΓÇöand eventually her three daughtersΓÇöheard for decades the stories of DwayneΓÇÖs female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in postΓÇôslavery Tennesseesome escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippiand some fled abusive men. StraightΓÇÖs motherΓÇôinΓÇôlawAlberta Simsis the descendant at the heart of this memoir. SusanΓÇÖs familytooreflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onwardΓÇöfrom SwitzerlandCanadaand the Colorado Rockies to California. A Pakistani wordbiraderiis one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clanΓÇöthose who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girlsnow grown and working in museums and the entertainment industryStraight writesΓÇ£The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇ£Certain books give off the sense that you wonΓÇÖt want them to endso splendid the writingso lyrical the stories. Such is the case with Southern California novelist Susan StraightΓÇÖs new memoirIn the Country of Women . . . Her vibrant pages are filled with people of churnedΓÇôtogether blood culled from scattered immigrants and native peoplesindomitable women and their babies. Yet they never succumb . . . Straight gives us permission to remember what went before with passion and attachment.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇôΓÇôLos Angeles Times