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Customer Reviews of An American Story

Debra Dickerson fits every conceivable definition of a hero. The frustrating thing about her strenuous autobiography, "An American Story," is that she's a person the reader wants to like, but can't. Her journey from the hardscrabble life of the working poor through her years as a star at Harvard Law School can hardly be more compelling. She overcomes the multiple demons of racism, class oppression, family violence and heartbreaking personal insecurity and propels herself through a challenging education, transformative career in the air force, and finally into the highest echelons of America's political and jouralistc elite, all the while gaining new and valuable insights into the intricate interrelationships of politics, economics, race, sex and class. She emerges as a compelling new voice in the intellectual community as America enters its next stage of social development in the 21st century.

The respect she commands for her achievements could never be denied her by anyone. Yet for all she accomplishes in her remarkable life, the tone of her book resonates with anger, most of it richly justified, and insecurity, all of it rather sad. For all of the thinking she does, from her time as a child petrified by her abusive father through her many misadventures as an ambitious Air Force officer and in law school, she never seems to arrive at the conclusions she wants, and confusion remains with her right until the end.

Teetering back and forth between the politics of personal responsibility and a fuzzy acceptance of the Marxist principles of class obsession, she finds solace one day in the writings of Ayn Rand and decries Ronald Reagan as a "moron" the next. She bitterly criticizes her own race for half the book for its lack of self actualization, and spends much of the rest of the time trying vainly to figure out what made her think like a traitor. She decries the pain imposed on her by her often monstrous father, yet follows in his footsteps quite literally in many aspects of her life.

The book ends with Dickerson beginning mid-life with a plethora of accomplishments under her belt and a new day dawning. One hopes that in the volume about the next forty years of her life, which promises to be every bit as interesting as the first, she'll show a side of herself which has learned to mellow with the acceptance of the way things have to be.

shattering stereotypes of both liberals and conservatives
If you enjoy excellent writing combined with an absorbing story, I urge you to read this memoir. It's the tale of a contemporary woman in search of herself. The daughter of a former share-cropper, she carved out a stellar career in the Air Force, then cut it short to go to Harvard Law School. "An American Story" is hardly a Horatio Alger cliche, though. It's much more; Dickerson describes her experiences of gender, race, and class distinctions in present-day American life, and she depicts her massive struggles to make sense of those experiences. Along the way she shatters some stereotypes held dear by both liberals and conservatives. Dickerson is a born writer, and her quest for personal autonomy and fulfillment makes up the heart of this compelling book.

A powerful look back with self-awareness
Debra Dickerson's memoir looks back on the first 40 years or so of her life with seeming self-consciousness. It can be criticized for being too inwardly focused, but then what is a memoir for? Documenting not only her own experiences but her internal reactions to those experiences helps the reader to gain both admiration and insight into Dickerson's accomplishments.

Best of all it spotlights Dickerson's incredible writing, which is the product of someone who has known and loved books all her life and formed a committed relationship with them as an adult. Though she herself admits it took a long time for her emotional intelligence to catch up with her book one. It helps that she doesn't spare much time for self-pity in her self examination.

This is the kind of book I'll be recommending to friends, especially women friends. Of memoirs written by women, I found it perhaps the most enjoyable I have read since "And So It Goes," by Linda Ellerbee--another southern woman. Dickerson is not as funny as Ellerbee (neither is she trying to be) but like her she earned my admiration on sheer quality of writing.

The memoir is hardly free of humorous incident. I really enjoyed the way a young Dickerson turned her father's punishment of having all books but the bible removed from her bedroom, combined with an insistence that all children must recite a bible verse at the table before being served, against him.

I admire Debra Dickerson and I look forward to reading her next book.