Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons, and the Search for a Room of My Own

By Patricia J. Williams

Book Overview

A warm and seductive meditation on the personal and political from a renowned columnist and "one of the great theorists of race and law" (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.).

With her trademark wit and insight, Patricia Williams relates stories from the many facets of her life--as a lawyer, scholar, writer, African-American, descendant of slaves, mother, and single, fifty-something woman--always aware of the ironies inherent in situations where her many identities don't conform to societal expectations. The Open House of Williams's imagination takes us on a funny, often provocative, and entertaining journey which includes Oprah, Williams's Aunt Mary who passed as white, her Best White Friend, and tips on how to eat a watermelon without fear of racial judgment.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312424590
• ISBN13: 9780312424596
• Release Date: November 2005
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Only Book in the Wellesley Bookstore in the 1st week of August 2005!

Patricia Williams has a column in the Nation, Diary of a Mad Law Professor, which I found out about through reading this great book. I was at a music conference at Wellesley last summer and happened upon this in the bookstore. There were not many other books, but thank God they decided at least to have something there by an alumna, because the three books I had brought were not wearing well: 1) a cynical though I suppose funny report on Howard Dean's presidential campaign, 2) a book about how to survive in a nasty office environment and 3) I forget the third. Not great energy! But Williams' book was very warm and funny. I was particularly admiring of how much she knew of her own family background. A lot of family background sections in the beginnings of autobiographies can be ho-hum. This one was a wild ride! It reads as though she knew her ancestors personally. The book is a very important discussion of race relations and you just want everything to go her way. The college bookstore had a much bigger selection THIS year.