Deborah Santana is best known for her marriage to music iconCarlos Santana–a thirty-year bond that endures to this day. But asa girl growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, daughter of awhite mother and a black father–the legendary blues guitaristSaunders King–her life was charged with its own drama long beforeshe married. In this beautiful, haunting memoir, Deborah Santana shares forthe first time her early experiences with racial intolerance, herromantic involvement with musician Sly Stone and the suffering sheendured in that relationship, and her adventures in thefreewheeling 1960s. Yet it is her spiritual awakening that is thecore of this story. The civil rights movement was the foundation ofher growth, the Woodstock era the backdrop of her love with Carlos.The couple was drawn indelibly together by a search for truth andspirituality, but while yearning to be filled with God’s light,they were pulled dangerously toward a manipulative cult. Theyeventually disengage themselves from th
Song for My Fathers is the story of a young white boy driven bya consuming passion to learn the music and ways of a group of agingblack jazzmen in the twilight years of the segregation era.Contemporaries of Louis Armstrong, most of them had played in localobscurity until Preservation Hall launched a nationwide revival ofinterest in traditional jazz. They called themselves “the mens.”And they welcomed the young apprentice into their ranks. The boy was introduced into this remarkable fellowship by hisfather, an eccentric Southern liberal and failed novelist whosepowerful articles on race had made him one of the most effectivepolemicists of the early Civil Rights movement. Nurtured on hisfather’s belief in racial equality, the aspiring clarinetistembraced the old musicians with a boundless love and admiration.The narrative unfolds against the vivid backdrop of New Orleans inthe 1950s and ‘60s. But that magical place is more than decor; itis perhaps the central player, for this story could not have taken
What would you do if, just weeks after your spouse's suddendeath, you found out he was keeping secrets? Big secrets. Secretsthat could cost you millions of dollars—and brand you as acriminal. Innocent Spouse is an eye-opening memoir that asksa provocative and disturbing question: Is it possible to reallyknow and trust someone, even your spouse? Carol Ross Joynt was a successful television producer inWashington, D.C. Her husband, Howard, owned Nathans, alegendary restaurant in Georgetown. From an outsider’s perspective,Carol and Howard lived a fairy-tale life—spending weekends at theirChesapeake Bay estate, rubbing shoulders with New York’s andWashington’s elite, and raising their beloved son, Spencer. Buteverything changed with Howard’s sudden death when Spencer was onlyfive years old. Like any widow, Carol was devastated because she lost the love ofher life and her son’s father. But soon Carol had much more to copewith than her grief and new life as a single parent. As she wasfor
In the course of his flamboyant career as an all-purposeactivist, Saul Alinsky went from organizing working-class ethnicsin one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods to mapping outstrategies for the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s.He enlisted allies-from Catholic clergymen to labor unionists andblack activists-in battles waged against opponents from slumlordsto the Eastman Kodak corporation. The range of Alinsky'sactivities, the intensity of his beliefs, and his exhilaratingmixture of crudeness and calculation almost vibrate off the pagesof this passionate and inspiring biography.
From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, thisbrilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. JanetMalcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend ofSylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plathbiographies. Features a new Afterword by Malcolm.