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

By Patricia J. Williams

Book Overview

Open Housestrings together a delightful array of observations, reminiscences, anecdotes and commentaries by renowned columnist Patricia Williams. Written with her trademark wit and insight, she relates stories about 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 when her many identities don't conform to societal expectations. She tells us of her Great Aunt Mary, who crossed the color line one day, while boarding a train; about her Best White Friend, who believes that the only thing standing between the author and an eligible husband is a make-over; about the day she and her family learned how to eat watermelon without fear of racial judgment; and about why she worships Oprah. She also tackles serious subjects, such as cloning and the legacy of slavery and privacy issues in the cyberage, all with her characteristic sparkling humor and originality. Always provocative, never didactic,Open Houseis an entertaining journey through the rooms of Pat Williams' imagination.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374114072
• ISBN13: 9780374114077
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.0" x 5.5"

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.