The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Anne Fadiman, 1997
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374533403

Summary 
1997 Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award - Nonfiction

Brilliantly reported and beautifully crafted, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between the Merced Community Medical Center in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. (From the publisher.)

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When three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee Entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication.

Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different. The Hmong see illness aand healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg—the spirit catches you and you fall down—and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices. (Also from the publisher.)

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Author Bio 
• Birth—August 7, 1953
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—Harvard University
• Awards—National Book Critics Circle Award, 1997; National
   Magazine Award - Reporting
• Currently—New York City

Anne Fadiman is the recipient of a National Magazine Award for Reporting, she has written for Civilization, Harper's, Life, and the New York Times, among other publications. She lives in New York City. (From the publishers.)

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Anne Fadiman is an American author, editor and teacher. She is the daughter of the renowned literary, radio and television personality Clifton Fadiman and World War II correspondent and author Annalee Jacoby Fadiman. She attended Harvard University, graduating in 1975 from Radcliffe College at Harvard.

Researched in California, her 1997 book, The Spirit Catches You, examines Hmong family with a child with epilepsy, and their cultural, linguistic and medical struggles in America.

She's written two books of essays, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (1998) and At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays (2007), and edited Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love (2005).

Fadiman was a founding editor of the Library of Congress magazine Civilization, and was the editor of the Phi Beta Kappa quarterly The American Scholar. She was forced out of her position at The American Scholar in 2004 in a dispute over budgetary and other issues.

As of January 2005, in a program established by Yale alumnus Paul E. Francis, Anne Fadiman became Yale University's first Francis Writer in Residence, a three-year position which allows her to teach a non-fiction writing seminar, and advise, mentor and interact with students and editors of undergraduate publications. Fadiman is married to the American author George Howe Colt. (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews 
Ms. Fadiman tells her story with a novelist's grace, playing the role of cultural broker, comprehending those who do not comprehend each other and perceiving what might have been done or said to make the outcome different.
Richard Bernstein - New York Times

This fine book recounts a poignant tragedy.... It has no heroes or villains, but it has an abunance of innocent suffering, and it most certainly does have a mora.... [A] sad, excellent book.
Melvin Konner - New York Times Book Review

An intriguing, spirit-lifting, extraordinary exploration of two cultures in uneasy coexistence.... A wonderful aspect of Fadiman's book is her evenhanded, detailed presentation of these disparate cultures and divergent views—not with cool, dispassionate fairness but rather with a warm, involved interest.... Fadiman's book is superb, informal cultural anthropology—eye-opening, readable, utterly engaging.
Carole Horn - Washington Post Book World

I cannot think of a book by a non-physician that is more understanding of the difficulties of caring for people...or of the conditions under which today's medicine is practiced.
Sherwin B. Nuland - New Republic

When two divergent cultures collide, unbridgable gaps of language, religion, social customs may remain between them. This poignant account by Fadiman, editor of The American Scholar, of the clash between a Hmong family and the American medical community reveals that among the gaps yawns the attitude toward medicine and healing. The story focuses on Lia Lee, whose family immigrated to Merced, Calif., from Laos in 1980. At three months of age, Lia was diagnosed with what American doctors called epilepsy, and what her family called quag dab peg or, 'the spirit catches you and you fall down.' Fadiman traces the treatments for Lia's illness, observing the sharp differences between Eastern and Western healing methods. Whereas the doctors prescribed Depakene and Valium to control her seizures, Lia's family believed that her soul was lost but could be found by sacrificing animals and hiring shamans to intervene. While some of Lia's doctors attempted to understand the Hmong beliefs, many interpreted the cultural difference as ignorance on the part of Lia's parents. Fadiman shows how the American ideal of assimilation was challenged by a headstrong Hmong ethnicity. She discloses the unilateralness of Western medicine, and divulges its potential failings. In Lia's case, the two cultures never melded and, after a massive seizure, she was declared brain dead. This book is a moving cautionary tale about the importance of practicing "cross-cultural medicine,' and of acknowledging, without condemning, differences in medical attitudes of various cultures.
Publishers Weekly

Award-winning reporter Fadiman has turned what began as a magazine assignment into a riveting, cross-cultural medicine classic in this anthropological exploration of the Hmong population in Merced County, California. Following the case of Lia (a Hmong child with a progressive and unpredictable form of epilepsy), Fadiman maps out the controversies raised by the collision between Western medicine and holistic healing traditions of Hmong immigrants. Unable to enter the Laotian forest to find herbs for Lia that will "fix her spirit," her family becomes resigned to the Merced County emergency system, which has little understanding of Hmong animist traditions. Fadiman reveals the rigidity and weaknesses of these two ethnographically separated cultures. In a shrinking world, this painstakingly researched account of cultural dislocation has a haunting lesson for every healthcare provider. —Rebecca Cress-Ingebo, Fordham Health Sciences Library, Wright State University, Dayton, OH
Library Journal

A compelling anthropological study. The Hmong people in America are mainly refugee families who supported the CIA militaristic efforts in Laos. They are a clannish group with a firmly established culture that combines issues of health care with a deep spirituality that may be deemed primitive by Western standards. In Merced, CA, which has a large Hmong community, Lia Lee was born, the 13th child in a family coping with their plunge into a modern and mechanized way of life. The child suffered an initial seizure at the age of three months. Her family attributed it to the slamming of the front door by an older sister. They felt the fright had caused the baby's soul to flee her body and become lost to a malignant spirit. The report of the family's attempts to cure Lia through shamanistic intervention and the home sacrifices of pigs and chickens is balanced by the intervention of the medical community that insisted upon the removal of the child from deeply loving parents with disastrous results. This compassionate and understanding account fairly represents the positions of all the parties involved. The suspense of the child's precarious health, the understanding characterization of the parents and doctors, and especially the insights into Hmong culture make this a very worthwhile read. —Frances Reiher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
School Library Journal

A vivid, deeply felt, and meticulously researched account of the disastrous encounter between two disparate cultures: Western medicine and Eastern spirituality, in this case, of Hmong immigrants from Laos. Fadiman, a columnist for Civilization and the new editor of The American Scholar, met the Lees, a Hmong refugee family in Merced, Calif., in 1988, when their daughter Lia was already seven years old and, in the eyes of her American doctors, brain dead. In the Lees' view, Lia's soul had fled her body and become lost. At age three months Lia had had her first epileptic seizure—as the Lees put it, "the spirit catches you and you fall down." Lia's treatment was complex—her anti-convulsant prescriptions changed 23 times in four years—and the Lees were sure the medicines were bad for their daughter. Believing that the family's failure to comply with his instructions constituted child abuse, Lia's doctor had her placed in foster care. A few months after returning home, Lia was hospitalized with a massive seizure that effectively destroyed her brain. With death believed to be imminent, the Lees were permitted to take her home. Two years later, Fadiman found Lia being lovingly cared for by her parents. Still hoping to reunite her soul with her body, they arranged for a Hmong shaman to perform a healing ceremony featuring the sacrifice of a live pig in their apartment. Into this heart-wrenching story, Fadiman weaves an account of Hmong history from ancient times to the present, including their work for the CIA in Laos and their resettlement in the U.S., their culture, spiritual beliefs, ethics, and etiquette. While Fadiman is keenly aware of the frustrations of doctors striving to provide medical care to those with such a radically different worldview, she urges that physicians at least acknowledge their patients' realities. A brilliant study in cross-cultural medicine.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions 
1. What do you think of traditional Hmong birth practices (pp. 3-5)? Compare them to the techniques used when Lia was born (p. 7). How do Hmong and American birth practices differ?

2. Over many centuries the Hmong fought against a number of different peoples who claimed sovereignty over their lands; they were also forced to emigrate from China. How do you think these up-heavals have affected their culture? What role has history played in the formation of Hmong culture?

3. Dr. Dan Murphy said, "The language barrier was the most obvious problem, but not the most important. The biggest problem was the cultural barrier. There is a tremendous difference between dealing with the Hmong and dealing with anyone else. An infinite difference" (p. 91). What does he mean by this?

4. The author says, "I was struck...by the staggering toll of stress that the Hmong exacted from the people who took care of them, particularly the ones who were young, idealistic, and meticulous" (p. 75). Why do you think the doctors felt such great stress?

5. Dr. Neil Ernst said, "I felt it was important for these Hmongs to understand that there were certain elements of medicine that we understood better than they did and that there were certain rules they had to follow with their kids' lives. I wanted the word to get out in the community that if they deviated from that, it was not acceptable behavior" (p. 79). Do you think the Hmong understood this message? Why or why not? What do you think of Neil and Peggy?

6. Dr. Roger Fife is liked by the Hmong because, in their words, he "doesn't cut" (p. 76). He is not highly regarded by some of the other doctors, however. One resident went so far as to say, "He's a little thick." What do you think of Dr. Fife? What are his strengths and weaknesses? The author also speaks of other doctors who were able to communicate with the Hmong. How were they able to do so? What might be learned from this?

7. How did you feel about the Lees' refusal to give Lia her medicine? Can you understand their motivation? Do you sympathize with it?

8. How did you feel when Child Protective Services took Lia away from her parents? Do you believe it was the right decision? Was any other solution possible in the situation?

9. Were you surprised at the quality of care and the love and affection given to Lia by her foster parents? How did Lia's foster parents feel about Lia's biological parents? Was foster care ultimately to Lia's benefit or detriment?

10. How did the EMT's and the doctors respond to what Neil referred to as Lia's "big one"? Do you think they performed as well as they could have under the circumstances?

11. How does the greatest of all Hmong folktales, the story of how Shee Yee fought with nine evil dab brothers (p. 170), reflect the life and culture of the Hmong?

12. Discuss the Lees' life in Laos. How was it different from their life in the United States? Foua says, "When we were running from Laos at least we hoped that our lives would be better. It was not as sad as after Lia went to Fresno and got sick" (p. 171). What were the Lees running from? What were they hoping to find in the United States?

13. When polled, Hmong refugees in America stated that "difficulty with American agencies" was a more serious problem than either "war memories" or "separation from family." Why do you think they felt this way? Could this have been prevented? If so, how? What does the author believe?

14. The Hmong are often referred to as a "Stone Age" people or "low-caste hill tribe." Why is this? Do you agree with this assessment of Hmong culture? Does the author?

15. What was the "role loss" many adult Hmong faced when they came to the United States? What is the underlying root cause? How does this loss affect their adjustment to America?

16. What are the most important aspects of Hmong culture? What do the Hmong consider their most important duties and obligations? How did they affect the Hmong's transition to the United States?

17. What does Dan Murphy mean by, "When you fail one Hmong patient, you fail the whole community" (p. 253)?

18. The author gives you some insight into the way she organized her notes (p. 60). What does it say about the process of writing this book? She chooses to alternate between chapters of Lia's story and its larger background-the history of the Lee family and of the Hmong. What effect does this create in the book?

19. The concept of "fish soup" is central to the author's understanding of the Hmong. What does it mean, and how is it reflected in the structure of the book?

20. It is clear that many of Lia's doctors, most notably Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, were heroic in their efforts to help Lia, and that her parents cared for her deeply, yet this arguably preventable tragedy still occurred. Can you think of anything that might have prevented it?

21. What did you learn from this book? Would you assign blame for Lia's tragedy? If so, to whom? What do you think Anne Fadiman feels about this question?
(Questions from the publisher.)

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I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
Nora Ephron, 2006
Knopf Doubleday
160 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307276827


Summary
With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in I Feel Bad About My Neck, a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself.

Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age.

Utterly courageous, uproariously funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, I Feel Bad About My Neck is a scrumptious, irresistible treat of a book, full of truths, laugh out loud moments that will appeal to readers of all ages. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—May 19, 1941
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Beverly Hills, California
• Death—June 26, 2012
• Where—New York City
• Education—Wellesley College


Nora Ephron was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, journalist, author, and blogger.

She was best known for her romantic comedies and is a triple nominee for the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay—for Silkwood...When Harry Met Sally...and Sleepless in Seattle. Her film Julie & Julia came out in 2010. She sometimes wrote with her sister Delia Ephron.

Personal life
Ephron was born in New York City, eldest of four daughters in a Jewish family, and grew up in Beverly Hills; her parents, Henry and Phoebe Ephron, were both East Coast-born and raised screenwriters. Her sisters Delia and Amy are also screenwriters. Her sister Hallie Ephron is a journalist, book reviewer, and novelist who writes crime fiction.

Ephron's parents based Sandra Dee's character in the play and 1963 film Take Her, She's Mine (with Jimmy Stewart) on their 22-year-old daughter Nora and her letters to them from college. Both became alcoholics during their declining years. Ephron graduated from Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California, in 1958, and from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1962.

She was married three times. Her first marriage, to writer Dan Greenburg, ended in divorce after nine years. Her second was to journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame in 1976. Ephron had an infant son, Jacob, and was pregnant with her second son, Max, in 1979 when she found out the news of Bernstein's affair with their mutual friend, married British politician Margaret Jay.

Ephron was inspired by the events to write the 1983 novel Heartburn, which was made into a 1986 film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. In the book, Ephron wrote of a husband named Mark, who was “capable of having sex with a Venetian blind.” She also said that the character Thelma (based on Margaret Jay) looked like a giraffe with "big feet." Bernstein threatened to sue over the book and film, but he never did.

Ephron's third marriage was to screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi.

Although Jewish by birth, Ephron was not religious. "Because you can never have too much butter — that is my belief. If I have a religion, that's it," she told NPR in an interview about her 2009 movie, Julie & Julia.

Career
Ephron graduated from Wellesley College in 1962 and worked briefly as an intern in the White House of President John F. Kennedy.

After a satire she wrote lampooning the New Post caught the editor's eye, Ephron landed a job at the Post, where she stayed as a reporter for five years. In 1966, she broke the news in the Post that Bob Dylan had married Sara Lownds in a private ceremony three and a half months before.

Upon becoming a successful writer, she wrote a column on women's issues for Esquire. In this position, Ephron made a name for herself by taking on subjects as wide-ranging as Dorothy Schiff, her former boss and owner of the Post; Betty Friedan, whom she chastised for pursuing a feud with Gloria Steinem; and her alma mater Wellesley, which she said had turned out a generation of "docile" women." A 1968 send-up of Women's Wear Daily in Cosmopolitan resulted in threats of a lawsuit from WWD.

While married to Bernstein in the mid-1970s, at her husband and Bob Woodward's request, she helped Bernstein re-write William Goldman's script for All the President's Men, because the two journalists were not happy with it. The Ephron-Bernstein script was not used in the end, but was seen by someone who offered Ephron her first screenwriting job, for a television movie.

Ephron's 2002 play Imaginary Friends explores the rivalry between writers Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy.

Ephron and Deep Throat
For many years, Ephron was among only a handful of people in the world claiming to know the identity of Deep Throat, the source for news articles written by her husband Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal. Ephron claims to have guessed the identity of Deep Throat through clues left by Bernstein. Among them was the fact that Bernstein referred to the source as "My Friend", the same initials as "Mark Felt," whom some suspected to be Bernstein's source.

Ephron's marriage with Bernstein ended acrimoniously, and Ephron was loose-lipped about the identity of Deep Throat. She told her son Jacob and has said that she told anyone who asked...

I would give speeches to 500 people and someone would say, "Do you know who Deep Throat is?" And I would say, "It’s Mark Felt."

Classmates of Jacob Bernstein at the Dalton School and Vassar College recall Jacob revealing to numerous people that Felt was Deep Throat. Curiously, the claims did not garner attention from the media during the many years that the identity of Deep Throat was a mystery. Ephron was invited by Arianna Huffington to write about the experience in the Huffington Post and now regularly blogs for the site.

Death
On June 26, 2012, Ephron died from pneumonia, a complication resulting from acute myeloid leukemia, a condition with which she was diagnosed in 2006. In her final book, I Remember Nothing (2010), Ephron left clues that something was wrong with her or that she was ill, particularly in a list at the end of the book citing "things I won't miss/things I'll miss."

There was widespread and somewhat shocked reaction to her death (as she had kept her illness secret from most people), with celebrities such as Meryl Streep, Matthew Broderick, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Nicole Kidman, Tom Hanks, Albert Brooks, and Ron Howard commenting on her brilliance, warmth, generosity, and wit.

At the Karlovy Vary Film Festival of that year, actresses Helen Mirren and Susan Sarandon, who were honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award, paid tribute to her during their speeches.

Nora Ephron Prize
The Nora Ephron Prize is a $25,000 award by the Tribeca film festival for a female writer or filmmaker "with a distinctive voice." The first Nora Ephron Prize was awarded in 2013 to Meera Menon for her film Farah Goes Bang. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/1/2014.)

Listen to a terrific audio tribute to Ephron by bloggers Hollister & O'Toole.

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Book Reviews
This brief, long-overdue book is for readers still willing to buy into Ms. Ephron's familiar writing persona: that of a sharp, funny, theatrically domesticated New Yorker who can throw both arrows and good money at the petty things that plague her. When she says that she can trace the history of the last 40 years through changing trends in lettuce, she isn't kidding.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Despite the elegiac tone of this collection, it would be nice to think that we'll have Nora Ephron around for a long time. She's always good for an amusing line, a wry smile, and sometimes an abashed grin of recognition as she homes in on one of our own dubious obsessions.
Bunny Crumpacker - Washington Post


The honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty," concludes Nora Ephron in her sparkling new book about aging. With 15 essays in 160 pages, this collection is short, a thoughtful concession to pre- and post-menopausal women (who else is there?), like herself, who "can't read a word on the pill bottle," follow a thought to a conclusion, or remember the thought after not being able to read the pill bottle. Ephron drives the truth home like a nail in your soon-to-be-bought coffin
Toni Bentley - Publishers Weekly


Though humorously self-deprecating and poignant, critics agree that the essays, some published previously,are uneven.... Despite the collection's lightweight feel, Ephron still writes [according to L.A. Times critic] "like someone who has something useful and important to tell her readers."
Bookmarks Magazine


A disparate assortment of sharp and funny pieces revealing the private anguishes, quirks and passions of a woman on the brink of senior citizenhood.... One doesn't need to be a post-menopausal New Yorker with a liberal outlook and comfortable income to enjoy Ephron's take on life, but those who fit the profile will surely relish it most.
Kirkus Reviews

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Book Club Discussion Questions
1. In “I Feel Bad About My Neck,” Ephron writes that she avoids making truthful comments on how her friends look, even when they ask her directly [pp. 3–4]. Why is this a wise decision? She says, “the neck is a dead giveaway” [p. 5]. When women seek each other's opinions about how their necks, and other features, really look, do they want the truth, or do they want to be reassured?

2. According to Ephron, most authors who write about aging say “it great to be old. It's great to be wise and sage and mellow” [p. 7]. What, for her, is wrong with this approach? How would you compare I Feel Bad About My Neck with other books you have read about aging or menopause? Is it more useful?

3. In “I Hate My Purse,” Ephron sees her purse as a microcosm of her life—it is the symbol of her inability to be organized. Given the current obsession with expensive purses in American fashion, why is her choice of a plastic MetroCard bag amusing [pp. 15–16]?

4. What do the foods we cook, the cookbook authors we seek to emulate, and the way we entertain guests, say about how we want life to be? Why does Ephron give up her attachment to Craig Claiborne and begin “to make a study of Lee Bailey” [p. 26], and then later move on to Martha Stewart and Nigella Lawson?

5. Heartburn was a “thinly disguised novel about the end of my marriage” [p. 28]. If you have read Heartburn or seen the film, think about how Ephron presents her current stage in life, and what has changed for her. What is her attitude as she reflects on earlier and more difficult periods of her life?

6. Ephron writes, “I sometimes think that not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside of death” [p. 32]. She also says that going to a hair salon twice a week and having her hair blown dry is “cheaper by far than psychoanalysis, and much more uplifting” [p. 34]. For Ephron, “maintenance” has larger implications than just taking care of one's appearance. What are the larger meanings of these annoying, repetitive actions, for her—and by implication, for women in general?

7. What would this book be like if written by a man? Do men have similar issues about growing older, and do they talk or think about them in similar ways? Think about and share ideas about what well-known man—a writer or a celebrity, perhaps—might be capable of writing the male version of I Feel Bad About My Neck.

8. In “Parenting in Three Stages,” Ephron revises some commonly held notions. Adolescence, for instance, is a period that helps parents separate from their children, and there is “almost nothing you can do to make life easier for yourself except wait until it's over” [p. 62]. Later in the book she says, “the empty nest is underrated” [p. 125]. How does being in her sixties, with her children out of the house, change Ephron's perspective on motherhood?

9. In “Moving On,” Ephron writes about an important and prolonged episode in her past: a love affair with an apartment building. How does she eventually “move on”? Does this essay suggest that she has become more pragmatic with time? How does she change her mind about what makes sense for her, as she gets older?

10. Why is “The Story of My Life in 3,500 Words or Less” such an effective way of telling one's life story? What does Ephron focus on as the most important issues in this miniaturized autobiography? What lessons has she learned?

11. While this is undoubtedly a funny and enjoyable book, in what ways is it also a serious book? What are Ephron's most important insights in “Considering the Alternative”?

12. What, if anything, does I Feel Bad About My Neck have to say about the benefits of growing older?

13. Certain small pieces in this collection might provoke you and members of your group to try writing your own version. What would you include, for instance, in your own list of “What I Wish I'd Known”?

14. What is the funniest moment in this collection, and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class
Lawrence Otis Graham, 1999
HarperCollins
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060984380


Summary
In 1995, Lawrence Otis Graham wrote a first-person account of his observations of institutional racism perpetuated at an elite country club—Member of the Club

In Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, Graham focuses his sights on the black upper class, looking at the people, places, and objects it comprises. His examination of the history of this elite — who refer to themselves as "our crowd" — serves as a first-person look at a small, tightly knit group that has wielded an increasingly large amount of power and prestige.

Debutante cotillions. Million-dollar homes. Summers in Martha's Vineyard and Sag Harbor. Membership in the Links, Jack & Jill, Deltas, Boule, and AKAs. An obsession with the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of the black upper class and the focus of the first book written about the black elite by a member of this hard-to-penetrate group.

Author and TV commentator Graham, one of the nation's most prominent spokesmen on race and class, spent six years interviewing the wealthiest black families in America. He includes historical photos of a people that made their first millions in the 1870s. Graham tells who's in and who's not in the group today with separate chapters on the elite in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Memphis, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Nashville, and New Orleans. A new Introduction explains the controversy that the book elicited from both the black and white communities. (From the publisher.)

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About the Author
• Birth—1962
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Westchester County, NY
• Education—B.A., Princeton Univesity; J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Westchester County, New York

Lawrence Otis Graham is an attorney and commentator on race, politics, and class in America. He is one of the nation’s leading authors and experts on race, politics and class in America. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, he is the author of 14 books and numerous articles in such publications as the New York Times, Essence, Reader’s Digest, Glamour and U.S. News & World Report. His book, Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class was a New York Times, L.A. Times and Blackboard bestseller.

Graham’s newest book, The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty is an important biography of U.S. Senator Blanche Bruce, the first black to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. Graham is also the author of such books as The Best Companies for Minorities, Proversity—two Important guides on diversity in the workplace—as well as the very popular Member of the Club, which focused on his now-famous experience of leaving his New York law firm and going undercover as a busboy to expose racism, sexism and antisemitism at an all-white country club in Greenwich, Connecticut. That was originally a cover story on New York magazine.

Graham has appeared on more than one hundred TV shows including Oprah, Today Show, The View, Good Morning America, and has been profiled in USA Today, Time, Ebony, People Magazine and many other publications. He is a popular speaker at colleges, corporations and other institutions where he has addressed the issues of diversity and culture. His audiences have included Duke, UCLA, Howard, Yale, Kraft Foods, Corning, Xerox, Disney, American Library Association and many other organizations around the U.S. and Japan. His research and advice have appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

He is leading a campaign to get the U.S. Post Office to honor Senator Blanche Bruce on a stamp since the nation has never placed a black elected official on a stamp. Graham is married to the corporate executive, Pamela Thomas-Graham, who is the author of novels including Blue Blood and Orange Crushed. They live in Manhattan and Westchester County, New York. (From Wikipedia.)/p>

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Book Reviews
A fascinating if unwieldy amalgam of popular history, sociological treatise and memoir....Graham clearly loves and admires the people he is writing about, and this is both the charm of the book and its great failing....Still...[Graham] has made a major contribution both to African-American studies and to the larger American picture.
Andrea Lee - The New York Times Book Review


Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class is the literary equivalent of the nose job Graham obtained so that he could "further buy into the aesthetic biases that many among the black elite hold so dear." Instead of reporting on the foibles of the black upper crust, Graham sucks up to it, providing little more than a breathless list of neighborhoods, vacation spots and social clubs dominated by folks who can pass the 'brown paper bag' test.
Jack White - Time

In this work, Graham, who exposed bias against African Americans in his sharp-tongued account of working at an elite country club (Member of the Club), here focuses on "America's black upper class": a conservative, well-to-do group that dates back to the first black millionaires in the 1870s and whose members are associated with institutions like the Links and the Oak Bluffs area of Martha's Vineyard.
Library Journal


[Graham's] insights into the story of blacks in vacation spots...are fascinating. Nevertheless, the ongoing claustrophobia of privilege can weary a reader. One walks away with the impression that Graham's effort could have been cut in half—and all one would have missed is an extra afternoon of interminable croquet, followed by cucumber sandwiches down by the gazebo.
Kirkus Reviews

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Book Club Discussion Questions

Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Our Kind of People:

1. Does Graham's book offer a critique or a glorification of the tightly-knit world of upper-class African-Americans?

2. What does it take to become part of this elite group? Can the self-made man or woman join?

3. Trace the historical background, the development, of this elite group of African-Americans and its separate-but-just-as-equal (or more-than-equal) world.

4. What do you think of the insuated resorts for the wealthy (black or white) on Martha's Vineyard, Sag Harbor? Do you find them alluring, claustrophobic, unfairly exclusive, enviable?

5. To what degree does Graham's place in his social milieu enable him to view it objectively. Do you think his familiarity helps him or hinders him in his assessment?

(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks)

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The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
Susan Casey, 2010
Knopf Doubleday
326 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780767928854

Summary
For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dis­missed these stories—waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics.

But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet’s waters.

They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea—including several that approached 100 feet.

As scientists scramble to understand this phenomenon, others view the giant waves as the ultimate challenge. These are extreme surfers who fly around the world trying to ride the ocean’s most destructive monsters.

The pioneer of extreme surfing is the legendary Laird Hamilton, who, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to board suicidally large waves of 70 and 80 feet. Casey follows this unique tribe of peo­ple as they seek to conquer the holy grail of their sport, a 100­-foot wave.

In this mesmerizing account, the exploits of Hamilton and his fellow surfers are juxtaposed against scientists’ urgent efforts to understand the destructive powers of waves—from the tsunami that wiped out 250,000 people in the Pacific in 2004 to the 1,740-foot-wave that recently leveled part of the Alaskan coast.

Like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, The Wave brilliantly portrays human beings confronting nature at its most ferocious. (From the publisher.)

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Author
Susan Casey is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks (2005),
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean (2010), and Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins (2015).

In addition to authoring books, she served as creative director of Outside Magazine, where she was part of the editorial team that developed the stories behind the bestselling books Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, as well as the 2002 movie Blue Crush.

The Toronto-born Casey has been Editor-in-Chief of O, The Oprah Magazine since 2009. (From the publisher.)

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Book Reviews
"[Susan Casey] examines big waves from every angle, and goes in deep with those who know the phenomenon most intimately.... Casey makes a convincing, entertaining case (nifty cliffhangers and all) that there is a heretofore little-known monster in our midst.... She pushes the scientists on the big question.... Casey is fluent in 'gnarly' and proficient in 'wonk,' and she writes lucidly so the rest of us can come along for the ride. Her wonderfully vivid, kinetic narrative...offers a prescient vision of watery perils—and sometimes, bittersweet triumphs.... Amid the images of demolition, Casey hangs on to the magic and beauty of waves.
Holly Morris - New York Times Book Review

The book dives deeply into the world of top-level surfers....Casey does a commendable job of surveying the broader problems confronting wave studies...compelling and wonderfully detailed...engrossing.... Casey adroitly moves beyond what we think we know about big-wave surf culture and churns out a series of action chapters that are not for the faint of heart.
Los Angeles Times

Extraordinary....fascinating, heroic, dazzling, terrifying, amazing, unbelievable, mesmerizing, instructive, enlightening, superb. This is the Dragon Tattoo, Moby Dick, Into Thin Air for our time; a powerful, articulate ride into a world you never knew existed but that you will never, never forget. I am honoured to write this review. Bravo, Susan Casey.
Globe and Mail (Canada)

Immensely powerful, beautiful, addictive and, yes, incredibly thrilling....takes the reader into the hearts and minds of the world's renowned surfers....Through the eyes of the surfers, readers get a remarkable sense of how they choose their waves, the skill that it takes to rocket across them, what it feels like to fall, what happens when surfers and Jet Skis are flung into coral reefs, what it's like to be rolled and pounded by tons of water, and what it is like physically and psychologically to be held under for too long - how some surfers make it back to the surface, and others drown.

But The Wave is far more than a book about surfing. Casey's quest is also to understand the characteristics of giant waves and rogue waves. She explores the impact giant waves have on ships, oil rigs, fishing boats and passenger ships.....Casey explains the science of waves in a straightforward but always engaging manner.... Casey also illuminates recent mind-boggling discoveries.... Casey unlocks the mysteries of waves in her fascinating and enlightening book. And like a surfer who is happily hooked, the reader simply won't be able to get enough of it.
San Francisco Chronicle

You think Jaws made you fear the ocean? In this adrenaline rush of a book, Casey...describes "nature's biggest tantrum".... Her eerie, majestic descriptions...make The Wave an unsettling thrill ride that's as terrifying as it is awe inspiring.
People

Casey writes compellingly of the threat and beauty of the ocean at its most dangerous.... Casey also smoothly translates the science of her subject into engaging prose. This book will fascinate anyone who has even the slightest interest in the oceans that surround us.
Publishers Weekly

Casey writes up a fascinating compendium of information about the scientists’ specialties and the global shipping industry’s concern with high-amplitude waves.... Stoking the ever-popular topic of extremities of nature, Casey imparts awe in her rogue-wave connection of commerce, science, and sport. —Gilbert Taylor
Booklist

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Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think there isn’t more news coverage on sunken freighters, tankers, and bulk carriers? Do tragedies at sea strike a different chord in the popular imagination than say, a plane crash? 

2. What’s the difference between surfing a wave and surviving it? What drives people to extreme situations and how does one draw the line between determination and courting disaster?

3. Many big wave surfers, like Laird Hamilton, are married with children. How do you think they rationalize putting their lives on the line for what many would consider sport? 

4. Why do you think the psychological beating is often worse than the physical for surfers? Do you think Brett Lickle’s mishap towards the end of the book helped him see what was really important in life or psychologically cripple him?

5. Surfers and scientists have different methods of judging a wave’s intensity. Is one rubric more accurate than the other? 

6. Susan Casey detected a strong female presence in the scientific community that seems to be lacking in the surfing world. Why do you think surfing—and tow surfing in particular—seems to be so male-dominated? How much of it is physical and how much is psychological?

7. Why is respect for the waves so important? What happens if you lose this respect? 

8. Many surfers in the book refer to themselves as “watermen.” They’re not simply athletes, or thrill seekers—they almost have a sixth sense when it comes to the water. What can we learn from these watermen in regards to how they regard and harmonize with the ocean? What responsibility, if any, do you think these adventurers have to the ocean and to each other? 

9. Geological history has a long memory but humans have largely forgotten devastating natural disasters of the past couple of hundred years like the Lisbon tsunami of 1755.  Do you think this ability to forget and move on is part of what makes our species so resilient? Or do these sorts of memory lapses leave us ill-prepared to deal with future disasters?

10. After Susan Casey witnesses a sixty-eight foot wave at Killers, she remembers Laird Hamilton’s assertion—“If you can look at one of these waves and you don’t believe that there’s something greater than we are, then you’ve got some serious analyzing to do…” How has your perception of the ocean—and those who study it and ride its waves—changed after reading The Wave?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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