Claiming Kin

by Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs

Book Overview

A touching story of a woman's search for her family roots in the wake if the sudden death of her father. Claiming Kin is a powerful and compelling story about a woman's quest to search out her roots upon the death of the father she barely knew. A former journalist hungry for the truth, her search into the past leads her from her hometown in Nashville, Tennessee, back to the birthplace of the Scruggs in nearby Williamson County. There she traces the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312261357
• ISBN13: 9780312261351
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Finding out, memories and more than memories

I started reading this book as something I would look at a chapter at a time for few weeks, while I digested my lonely meals. However, the day I read it became the day I finished it. I couldn't put the book down, and amid the many tasks I had that Saturday, the one priority was to read this book. I didnt go out of the house all day, just got this book read. What we have is an honest confrontation with family and family history. As someone who majored in writing memoir in Creative Writing School, I have come to find this genre usually divided between halcyon memories of a great childhood, a wonderful family, and a sacred past on one side, and the survival stories of folks who had tragic childhoods on the other hand. This book has none of that; it seems like the real thing right down the middle. At the same time, the writer's ability to tell about herself, but keep the subject squarely on her family, and the larger spiritual quest that her search for her family put her own, was really interesting to me as somone who has attempted to write memoir. What I learned in this book was about how family is an open and closed book but that book is about more than who did what when, but about history, not only the history in the books that tell us how slavery, reconstruction, desegregation etc. unfolded, but the history why one cousin smiles that way and another look that way, why one cousin I have who is in and out of jail walks and talks the same way that another cousin he has never met who is both a dean at a major university and a fanatical holiness believer. If you are of my generation, 58 in 2005, you will settle in to some memories, although you will realize that you're somewhere between the author's parents and the author. Besides all that, there is just some really good writing here. There are very tight metaphors that smack you into wondering why you didnt know what she is saying with them all your life. She is able to write quite sensitive, complex, and sophisticated things while being clear as a bell. Best of all for memoir, this is a very accurate and honest book. Even if you don't share the spiritual beliefs that the experience leads the author to, you will find yourself never thinking about your family, and if you are African American, never thinking about our history the same way after you read this book.

Who do you think you are?

Sometimes we discover who we are out of curiosity and other times life slaps us in the face and forces us to confront the reality of who we are. After the death of her father, Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs seemed to have found herself asking questions that she could not answer. These questions led her on a journey that would span over twenty years, and I suspect still continues today.The book begins with a description of one of the authors few recollections of her father. This opening scene is a pleasant memory, yet it leaves you with a bittersweet feeling because even as the author is sharing this memory, you feel her sense of loss. Although it is clear that part of her loss is centered on the fact that her father has died, there is an even greater sense of regret at the loss of an opportunity to build a stronger relationship with him. She comes to the realization that even though she grew up with her father in her home, his quiet nature and her lack if interest kept her from really knowing him. Her now deceased father is a man that carried the story of his life to his grave.The author then begins a journey. Her initial goal was to learn about the events that shaped her father into the man he became with the hopes that it would help her better understand him. What she found were just as many questions as answers, and what began as a desire to learn about her father's past turned into a full blown genealogical study of her paternal ancestry. As with many African Americans researching their genealogy, she found herself coming against roadblocks, such as poorly kept records from a time where African Americans were considered property instead of people. Additionally, she would encounter deeply protected family secrets, and the fact that much of the information she was seeking could only be retrieved from the few living relatives that were aware of it. But slowly, she was able to connect stories with what had previously been only a name of someone she had never met.Claiming Kin is an emotional story that describes a project that was just as spiritual as it was analytical. As the author uncovers more and more of her family history, she also develops a better understanding of her own identity. Further, she is better able to understand how slavery shaped her ancestors. More importantly, she gained a deeper appreciation for the fact that her ancestors were more than just names that fit in boxes to make up her family tree. Claiming Kin is a touching and enjoyable read that will inspire anyone to dig deeper into their own family roots and to try and preserve not only the names, but also the stories from their past.Reviewed by Stacey Seay

Who do you think you are?

Sometimes we discover who we are out of curiosity and other times life slaps us in the face and forces us to confront the reality of who we are. After the death of her father, Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs seemed to have found herself asking questions that she could not answer. These questions led her on a journey that would span over twenty years, and I suspect still continues today.The book begins with a description of one of the authors few recollections of her father. This opening scene is a pleasant memory, yet it leaves you with a bittersweet feeling because even as the author is sharing this memory, you feel her sense of loss. Although it is clear that part of her loss is centered on the fact that her father has died, there is an even greater sense of regret at the loss of an opportunity to build a stronger relationship with him. She comes to the realization that even though she grew up with her father in her home, his quiet nature and her lack if interest kept her from really knowing him. Her now deceased father is a man that carried the story of his life to his grave.The author then begins a journey. Her initial goal was to learn about the events that shaped her father into the man he became with the hopes that it would help her better understand him. What she found were just as many questions as answers, and what began as a desire to learn about her father's past turned into a full blown genealogical study of her paternal ancestry. As with many African Americans researching their genealogy, she found herself coming against roadblocks, such as poorly kept records from a time where African Americans were considered property instead of people. Additionally, she would encounter deeply protected family secrets, and the fact that much of the information she was seeking could only be retrieved from the few living relatives that were aware of it. But slowly, she was able to connect stories with what had previously been only a name of someone she had never met.Claiming Kin is an emotional story that describes a project that was just as spiritual as it was analytical. As the author uncovers more and more of her family history, she also develops a better understanding of her own identity. Further, she is better able to understand how slavery shaped her ancestors. More importantly, she gained a deeper appreciation for the fact that her ancestors were more than just names that fit in boxes to make up her family tree. Claiming Kin is a touching and enjoyable read that will inspire anyone to dig deeper into their own family roots and to try and preserve not only the names, but also the stories from their past...

rings true

The author's journey is told in a straight-forward style nurtured by her journalistic background, but her search for connection to a spiritual past adds a lyricism that makes reading a delight. It rings true. Although my Irish-Catholic upbringing was very different, the author and I were born in the same year in the same part of the country, and some of her memories were familiar, as were parts of the journey itself.Best of all, the author manages to avoid false nostalgia, and neither sentimentalizes nor sanitizes her "characters".

Awesome

I thoroughly enjoyed Scruggs' book. She truly possesses the gift of language. "Claiming Kin" is more than a found-my-roots book. Her own story -- changing her name, journeying far from her Tennessean roots and embracing a spirituality that spoke to her soul -- is just as compelling as discovering one's enslaved forebears. She interweaves all of these aspects, which lead back to her relationship with her father. The result is a gift to unborn Scrugges, as well as readers.