Secret Daughter: A Mixed-Race Daughter and the Mother Who Gave Her Away
by June Cross
This book is really about secrets and the havoc they cause. Former PBS producer and now Columbia professor June Cross is the child of a white woman and a black man. She told part of this story in her 1997 Emmy Award–winning documentary of the same name. Her father was a well-known comedian, James Cross, of Stump & Stumpy. Financial problems and other issues caused her parents to part. Eventually, her mother sent her to live with a traditional, very middle class black couple in Atlantic City because June, as a small child, couldn’t pass for white. But her mother could not fully let her go and they remained in contact. She spent summers in Hollywood where her mother had married actor Larry Storch of The F Troop (remember that show?). Watch for a mid-October event.

Baby Brother’s Blues
by Pearl Cleage
Pearl demonstrates her fine skills in this ambitious book with many characters. It is set in Atlanta’s West End. Formerly a safe area cut off from much of the city’s, the West End is changing. Bad things are happening. Blue Hamilton has been the area’s self-appointed enforcer. His wife Regina is pregnant and very worried about Blue’s safety. Cleage’s tight writing, great dialogue and excellent plotting makes this complex book work. It is populated by spirits, folks with past lives and visions. Cleage’s book is a fast-paced thriller with intersecting stories. Pearl was once press secretary for Maynard Jackson and she provides an inside look at Atlanta’s dealmakers and their coziness, sometimes with the wrong folks.