Negroland

Margo Jefferson spent her early years among a black elite in black Chicago—and she brings to these pages some of the same dazzling energy, exuberance, and precision that makes her reviews in the New York Times so fun to read. Negroland is a moving and trenchant history as well as a lively insider memoir—a fresh, bold look at something all too easily overlooked by others: the fluidity of black identity over time; the reclaiming and reconsideration of terms like “passing”; the importance of marriage in the lives of black urban professionals; the erotics of identity in general. In short, it is an essential book for anyone interested in African American life.