In the Country of Women: A Memoir
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Description
One of NPR's Best Books of the Year
“Straight’s memoir is a lyric social history of her multiracial clan in Riverside that explores the bonds of love and survival that bind them, with a particular emphasis on the women’s stories . . . The aftereffect of all these disparate stories juxtaposed in a single epic is remarkable. Its resonance lingers for days after reading.” —San Francisco Chronicle
In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self–proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close–knit Sims family, Straight—and eventually her three daughters—heard for decades the stories of Dwayne’s female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post–slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight’s mother–in–law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan’s family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward—from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California.
A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan—those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, “The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival.”
“Certain books give off the sense that you won’t want them to end, so splendid the writing, so lyrical the stories. Such is the case with Southern California novelist Susan Straight’s new memoir, In the Country of Women . . . Her vibrant pages are filled with people of churned–together blood culled from scattered immigrants and native peoples, indomitable women and their babies. Yet they never succumb . . . Straight gives us permission to remember what went before with passion and attachment.” ––Los Angeles Times
“Straight’s memoir is a lyric social history of her multiracial clan in Riverside that explores the bonds of love and survival that bind them, with a particular emphasis on the women’s stories . . . The aftereffect of all these disparate stories juxtaposed in a single epic is remarkable. Its resonance lingers for days after reading.” —San Francisco Chronicle
In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self–proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close–knit Sims family, Straight—and eventually her three daughters—heard for decades the stories of Dwayne’s female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post–slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight’s mother–in–law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan’s family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward—from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California.
A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan—those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, “The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival.”
“Certain books give off the sense that you won’t want them to end, so splendid the writing, so lyrical the stories. Such is the case with Southern California novelist Susan Straight’s new memoir, In the Country of Women . . . Her vibrant pages are filled with people of churned–together blood culled from scattered immigrants and native peoples, indomitable women and their babies. Yet they never succumb . . . Straight gives us permission to remember what went before with passion and attachment.” ––Los Angeles Times
Formats
Adobe EPUB eBook
Works on all eReaders (except Kindles), desktop computers and mobile devices with reading apps installed.
Kindle Book
Works on Kindles and devices with a Kindle app installed.
OverDrive Read
Need Help?
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
More Copies In Prospector
Loading Prospector Copies...
More Details
Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
08/06/2019
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781948226233
ASIN:
B07LFRY96Y
Lexile measure:
1030
Reviews from GoodReads
Loading GoodReads Reviews.
Citations
APA Citation (style guide)
Susan Straight. (2019). In the Country of Women: A Memoir. Catapult.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Susan Straight. 2019. In the Country of Women: A Memoir. Catapult.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Susan Straight, In the Country of Women: A Memoir. Catapult, 2019.
MLA Citation (style guide)Susan Straight. In the Country of Women: A Memoir. Catapult, 2019.
Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 0 |
| Bemis Public Library | 0 | 0 |
Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
14d0b406-141a-fa7c-2a1c-3880641dc4a3
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Oct 11, 2019 15:33:46
Date Updated:
Jan 04, 2021 18:27:20
Last Metadata Check:
May 01, 2024 05:50:00
Last Metadata Change:
Jun 05, 2023 10:38:36
Last Availability Check:
May 01, 2024 05:50:06
Last Availability Change:
May 01, 2024 05:50:06
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
May 02, 2024 20:47:58
OverDrive Product Record
- sortTitle
- In the Country of Women A Memoir
- crossRefId
- 4505875
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/793/B61/62/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/793/B61/62/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781948226233
- type: PublisherCatalogNumber
- value: 673545
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B07LFRY96Y
- type: PublisherCatalogNumber
- value: 673545
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781948226233
- type: PublisherCatalogNumber
- value: 673545
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- subtitle
- A Memoir
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Susan Straight
- id
- 793b6162-e323-44a6-abbc-708da2df7844
- title
- In the Country of Women
- starRating
- 3.7
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=162&titleID=4505875
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Marmot Library Network (CO)
- id: 1201
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: IntheCountryofWomen_9781948226233_4505875
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 18849317
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781948226233
- type: PublisherCatalogNumber
- value: 673545
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 0
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 8/6/2019
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=793b6162-e323-44a6-abbc-708da2df7844&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: IntheCountryofWomen_4505875
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: PublisherCatalogNumber
- value: 673545
- type: ASIN
- value: B07LFRY96Y
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 8/6/2019
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=793b6162-e323-44a6-abbc-708da2df7844&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: IntheCountryofWomen_9781948226233_4505875
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781948226233
- type: PublisherCatalogNumber
- value: 673545
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 8/6/2019
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=793b6162-e323-44a6-abbc-708da2df7844&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: Animals
- value: family
- value: relationships
- value: us history
- value: Biography
- value: motherhood
- value: Cooking
- value: mother
- value: parenting
- value: mindfulness
- value: mom
- value: mothers
- value: american history
- value: children
- value: American
- value: Child Development
- value: discipline
- value: pregnancy
- value: Drama
- value: Inspirational
- value: attachment
- value: feminism
- value: self help
- value: biographies
- value: United States History
- value: History
- value: Essays
- value: Attachments
- value: parenting books
- value: history books
- value: historical books
- value: gifts for history buffs
- value: parenting book
- value: American history books
- value: relationship books
- value: history gifts
- value: history buff gifts
- value: history lovers gifts
- value: history teacher gifts
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Straight, Susan
- bioText: SUSAN STRAIGHT has published eight novels, including Highwire Moon, Between Heaven and Here, and A Million Nightingales. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the National Magazine Award. She is the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Edgar Award for Best Short Story, the O. Henry Prize, the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Granta, McSweeney’s, Black Clock, Harper’s, and other journals. Her work has been translated into Spanish, German, French, Arabic, Turkish, Japanese, Romanian, Swedish, and Russian. She is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. She was born in Riverside, where she lives with her family.
- name: Susan Straight
- publishDate
- 2019-08-06T00:00:00-04:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- In the Country of Women
- fullDescription
- One of NPR's Best Books of the Year
“Straight’s memoir is a lyric social history of her multiracial clan in Riverside that explores the bonds of love and survival that bind them, with a particular emphasis on the women’s stories . . . The aftereffect of all these disparate stories juxtaposed in a single epic is remarkable. Its resonance lingers for days after reading.” —San Francisco Chronicle
In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self–proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close–knit Sims family, Straight—and eventually her three daughters—heard for decades the stories of Dwayne’s female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post–slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight’s mother–in–law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan’s family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward—from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California.
A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan—those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, “The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival.”
“Certain books give off the sense that you won’t want them to end, so splendid the writing, so lyrical the stories. Such is the case with Southern California novelist Susan Straight’s new memoir, In the Country of Women . . . Her vibrant pages are filled with people of churned–together blood culled from scattered immigrants and native peoples, indomitable women and their babies. Yet they never succumb . . . Straight gives us permission to remember what went before with passion and attachment.” ––Los Angeles Times - gradeLevels
- value: Grade 6
- value: Grade 7
- value: Grade 8
- popularity
- 677
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1ByAAAAA2r/products/793b6162-e323-44a6-abbc-708da2df7844/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 793b6162-e323-44a6-abbc-708da2df7844
- starRating
- 3.7
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/0111-1/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/0111-1/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/0111-1/793/B61/62/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/0111-1/793/B61/62/{793B6162-E323-44A6-ABBC-708DA2DF7844}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Family & Relationships
- value: History
- value: Nonfiction
- publishDateText
- 08/06/2019
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9781948226226
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
- One of NPR's Best Books of the Year
“Straight’s memoir is a lyric social history of her multiracial clan in Riverside that explores the bonds of love and survival that bind them, with a particular emphasis on the women’s stories . . . The aftereffect of all these disparate stories juxtaposed in a single epic is remarkable. Its resonance lingers for days after reading.” —San Francisco Chronicle
In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women. In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self–proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at... - sortTitle
- In the Country of Women A Memoir
- lexileScore
- 1030
- crossRefId
- 4505875
- subtitle
- A Memoir
- publisher
- Catapult
- bisacCodes
- code: FAM032000
- description: Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood
- code: FAM053000
- description: Family & Relationships / Extended Family
- code: HIS036060
- description: History / United States / 20th Century
