Brother in the Bush: An African American's Search for Self in East Africa

Brother in the Bush is a coming-of-awareness memoir of what the experience of Africa can mean for a 21st-century African American. John Slaughter, a successful stockbroker, has made it as a black man in America, but his life is full of constant reminders of how violently fragile existence here really is. Not long after his Baltimore townhouse is invaded and Slaughter confronts, shoots, and kills the intruder with his shotgun he embarks on a series of trips to Africa that unfold over almost a decade. Along the way he discovers a way of life that transforms and deepens his identity as an African American. Seduced and humbled by the contrasting realities, beauties and dangers he discovers in East Africa, Slaughter encounters different ways of life that begin to change his conceptions of life s purpose and meaning. Slaughter s vivid, blunt, and erudite narrative voice moves back and forth from his past growing up in the sixties and seventies to the present-tense of his journeys. Brother in the Bush unearths, probes and assesses the truths that Africa helps teach Slaughter about his life and all of our lives here in today s America."

"Brother in the Bush" is a coming-of-awareness memoir about what the experience of Africa can mean for a twenty-first-century African American. John Slaughter is a successful stockbroker in his thirties who decides to travel to Africa to broaden his horizons. He's "made it" as a black man in America, but his life is full of constant reminders of how violently fragile existence here really is.Not long after his Baltimore townhouse is invaded one night-and Slaughter confronts, shoots and kills the intruder with his shotgun-he embarks on a series of trips that unfolds over almost a decade. Along the way, he discovers a way of life that transforms and deepens his identity as an African American.Slaughter finds himself seduced and humbled by the contrasting realities, beauties and dangers he discovers in eastern Africa. He begins to ask questions, out loud, about his life, his relationships and his place here in twenty-first-century North America, where different varieties of fear seem to rule every-one to one degree or another. In Africa, he encounters different ways of life (among both Africans and other visitors to the continent) that expand his sense of possibility and begin to change his conceptions of life's purpose and meaning. Slaughter's vivid, blunt and erudite narrative voice moves back and forth from his past, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, through the present-tense of his journeys, and ranges widely across American culture in unearthing, probing and assessing the truths that Africa helps teach him about his life-and all of our lives-here in America.John Slaughter is a graduate of Tuskegee University's School of Veterinary Medicine and formerly worked in the financial industry for Morgan Stanley, First Union and other firms. He is the founder of Brooks Photography, for which he now leads photo safaris to eastern Africa.