Cassandra Jackson attempts to unearth her lost family, while also creating a new one--only to discover little progress separates the past from the present. As she moves back and forth between her girlhood and her journey to motherhood, Jackson reveals the chilling parallels between the harrowing inhumanity of Jim Crow medical care and the toxic discrimination that undergirds healthcare in the United States today.
Delicate ... Riveting, excruciating ... Another kind of grief permeates this memoir and is more elusive, even as it, too, is tied to racism and public health: intergenerational trauma ... Not only a story about the long shadow of family secrets but also a fearless, original interrogation of society’s treatment of the female body and the legacy of racism in America. It is also a story of resilience and, ultimately, renewal.
Jackson deftly intertwines the story of her search for the truth about "the wreck" with her infertility struggle ... Along with the trauma of her family’s past, racism shadows every corner of her narrative ... Jackson had feared her search for answers might cause her wounded father pain; in the end, it shines a healing light.
Passionate ... An account at once individual and universal ... Her surreal experiences in various fertility clinics add dark comedy ... Jackson arrives at what might be called wisdom.
