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Keeping Heart

A Memoir of Family Struggle, Race, and Medicine

Inbunden, Engelska, 2015

AvOtis Trotter

1 159 kr

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"After saying our good-byes to friends and neighbors, we all got in the cars and headed up the hill and down the road toward a future in Ohio that we hoped would be brighter," Otis Trotter writes in his affecting memoir, Keeping Heart: A Memoir of Family Struggle, Race, and Medicine.Organized around the life histories, medical struggles, and recollections of Trotter and his thirteen siblings, the story begins in 1914 with his parents, Joe William Trotter Sr. and Thelma Odell Foster Trotter, in rural Alabama. By telling his story alongside the experiences of his parents as well as his siblings, Otis reveals cohesion and tensions in twentieth-century African American family and community life in Alabama, West Virginia, and Ohio.This engaging chronicle illuminates the journeys not only of a black man born with heart disease in the southern Appalachian coalfields, but of his family and community. It fills an important gap in the literature on an underexamined aspect of American experience: the lives of blacks in rural Appalachia and in the nonurban endpoints of the Great Migration. Its emotional power is a testament to the importance of ordinary lives.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2015-09-15
Mått152 x 229 x undefined mm
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieSeries in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Appalachia
Antal sidor240
FörlagOhio University Press
ISBN9780821421888

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Otis Trotter lives in North Canton, Ohio. He worked with the Stark County Board of Developmental Disabilities as an instructor until his retirement. He is currently a Certified Independent Provider for the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities.Joe William Trotter Jr., is Giant Eagle Professor of History and Social Justice, Carnegie Mellon University, and author of Coal, Class, and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia.

"There are many authors, of course, who have written about the people and problems of Appalachia who don't have eugenicists for pen-pals and mentors. Some of them even anchor frank discussions of social problems within moving personal stories. Otis Trotter's Keeping Heart, a memoir about growing up poor, sick, and black in Appalachian Ohio springs to mind." (The Boston Review (adapted from What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia)) "The saga of Otis Trotter and his siblings is an inspiration for anyone with an ounce of empathy. Raised by a widowed mother, they were forced to overcome the debilitating legacy of racial, economic, and political oppression to achieve meaningful, prosperous lives. In many ways their history could serve as a metaphor for African American history. The 'Trotter Fourteen' seized control of their destinies through initiative, intelligence, dogged persistence, and by taking care of one another. The Trotter family's courageous struggle to succeed against improbable odds will uplift the spirit of everyone who reads this book." "Trotter's story is the American Dream: in America, one can overcome the obstacles in one's life through hard work and self-reliance. It will appeal to anyone who is interested in Appalachian studies, African American studies, and especially racial and ethnic diversity in the region."