An American Story (Pantheon) - Tapa dura

In a compelling memoir, a noted African-American journalist describes her personal journey and the influence of her heritage on her life and career, detailing the crippling self-doubt of her adolescence, her belief in the power of education, her career as a military intelligence officer, her years at Harvard Law School, and her work as a journalist. 75,000 first printing.

compelling, unsparing memoir from a widely admired African-American journalist.

Debra Dickerson's parents were share-croppers who migrated north after World War II. Born in 1959, Dickerson is an amalgam of her background--rural southern conservative and midwestern liberal--and at the same time a contemporary woman whose life has been shaped by the hardscrabble determination of her heritage.

In this book Dickerson bears brilliant witness to her rich, tumultuous life: the crippling self-doubt of her adolescence and her belief in education as a way out; her transformation in the U.S. Air Force into a distinguished intelligence officer; her years at Harvard Law School and metamorphosis into a "neurotic attorney with a Gold Card"; and, finally, her current position as a journalist in demand for her refreshing and controversially sane views on social issues.

With sharp intelligence and fierce wit, Dickerson shows us how she became what she is today--an icono