Secret Daughter: A Mixed-Race Daughter and the Mother Who Gave Her Away

by June Cross

Book Overview

June Cross was born in 1954 to Norma Booth, a glamorous, aspiring white actress, and James "Stump" Cross, a well-known black comedian. Sent by her mother to be raised by black friends when she was four years old and could no longer pass as white, June was plunged into the pain and confusion of a family divided by race. Secret Daughter tells her story of survival. It traces June's astonishing discoveries about her mother and about her own fierce determination...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143112112
• ISBN13: 9780143112112
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Wow.

This is really good book. Very much a tearjerker.

Captures the society development in race relations as well as personal relationships

I loved this book and could not put it down!! I was born the same year in another part of the country. It was interesting to see how a cohort made sense of the same issues I tried to make sense of. The way she coped and healed would make any therapist proud and provides much healing for a family dealing with trauma forced by survival and coping with the predjudices of a society not willing to accept women or people of color "be all they could be." Well written, insightful and candid.

Outstanding

A well written and moving memoir. An interesting look at a life against the backdrop of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Without giving away too much of her story let me say that it is fascinating to see how much society has changed since Ms. Cross's childhood. To have come through such challenges and to not only have survived but triumphed is a testament to the author's strength of character and a tribute to Aunt Peggy who raised her.

A powerful book - well worth reading!

I just finished reading this powerful book and dissolved into tears. It is so honest and personal an account of a life lived in two places, one black and one white and the inner struggles and outer slights that resulted from this displacement. It is also a love story of a white mother who couldn't keep her bi-racial daughter, didn't always understand the shoes that she walked in, but loved her the best way she knew how from afar. The author writes from such a deep place that anyone can identify with her, no matter what their background. The writing is moving, wonderful and well crafted, often poignant and gut wrenching. It is also a success story of someone putting back the pieces of a fragmented life torn with racial dissent and misunderstanding. But it will help you understand your world better and hers as well, so that it becomes one world- not hers, not yours, but all of ours. It is not filled with self pity, does not lecture, has wonderful show business and socially significant insights and will make you laugh cry and think. Anyone who reads this will be all the more richer as a human being for doing so.... I know I was!