Three Red Suitcases: A Southern Childhood

When adult Levonne Gaddy returns to the rural North Carolina community, where she was born and raised, to attend her mother's funeral, the director bars her entry to the viewing room, assuming she is white and therefore not related to the "colored" woman in the coffin. A sad, funny, and poignant story of childhood emerges as memories surface of racism and of the dysfunctional family life she left behind. Turmoil during the 1960's racial integration of southern schools fill her mind, as do the challenges of her first job, at age eleven, as the live-in caregiver for an elderly white woman. How will she come to terms with a childhood that includes rape and the death of her father? How will she make peace with the loss of the woman who gave birth to her but with whom she always struggled to make a connection?

About the Author :
Levonne gaddy is a native North Carolinian, writer, artist, and avid RVer. Cory is owner of Little Bear Music Company in Nanaimo, B.C., Canada. He is a music and audio book producer and also a member of the British Columbia-based band, Lion Bear Fox. Nancy Gundel Brown, the author of the forward is co-founder along with Levonne Gaddy, former president, and current board member of Multiracial Americans of Southern California. She is a clinical nurse specialist at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles.

Review :
A gripping coming of age story about race, gender, and resilience in the segregated south. This is an honest portrayal of the love, pain and survival of one family, but it represents so much more. Gaddy's trials reflect larger historical themes of intergenerational trauma." Helen A. Neville, PhD Professor Educational Psychology and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Levonne's writing puts me in mind of a combination Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker. Great stuff! ...It's the kind of book I'd want to have my high school students read." Cynthia Couture, Phoenix, Arizona The descriptions are excellent, the view of things as a kid are right on, perfectly balanced with the adult narrator's perspective. Life was so hard, but so rich and poor at the same time. The main character's parents beautiful, yet so flawed. The turmoil of the country runs through it. Kyle Fordyce-Lytle, Gig Harbor, Washington I was riveted by this book. Being exposed to this one child's experience opened up a viewpoint [about racial integration] that had never crossed my awareness. Carol Hughes, Sebastopol, California Since 1989, I have taught "Betwixt and Between," one of the first and longest-standing courses in the United States to deal specifically with the question of multiracial identity. Levonne's narrative lays out how she, as a girl, identified with her African American, Native American, and European backgrounds. G. Reginald Daniel, Ph.D., Author of More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara Levonne's commitment to living in deep integrity with herself, her friends and family, and her community grew out of her roots and ties to her family and rural North Carolina hometown. Loretta Ishida, Baltimore, Maryland A heartfelt story of a white-looking girl living in a black world a generation before my birth. I couldn't put the book down. Anna Batoosingh, Sonoma County, California I felt like I got to experience second-hand a childhood so different from my own. The author's account of her childhood experiences really changed my perception of life in the South, having only grown up hearing about stories in newspapers and on television. Susan Teed, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada