Constructing a Nervous System

In this intimate and innovative memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Margo Jefferson gives us her own personal and intellectual formation. As she comes of age in an America whose freedoms are distorted by race and gender, she finds herself reflected in a cast of others – jazz luminaries, writers, artists, athletes and stars. Bing Crosby and Ike Turner are among the author’s alter egos. The sounds of a jazz LP emerge as the intimate and instructive sounds of a parent’s voice. W.E.B. Du Bois and George Eliot meet illicitly. The muscles and movements of a ballerina are spliced with those of an Olympic runner, becoming a template for what a black female body can be. From Josephine Baker’s radiant transformations, to Willa Cather’s aesthetics of whiteness, Jefferson shows us how we can find space in cultures that will not make room for us, and how – even in times of stricture – we might learn to construct ourselves.

About the Author :
The winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Margo Jefferson previously served as book and arts critic for Newsweek and the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in, among other publications, Vogue, New York Magazine, The Nation and Guernica. Her memoir, Negroland, received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. She is also the author of On Michael Jackson and is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts. Karen Murray is an experienced voice actor based in Harlem, New York. She is well known as the voice of Lifetime's Beyond the Headlines, but has also lent her voice to commercials, radio, audiobooks and more. Most recently, Karen has narrated Tara M Springfellow's Memphis and To Walk About in Freedom by Carole Emberton.

Review :
'Jefferson's candor, and the courage and rigor of her critic's mind, recall a number of America's greatest thinkers.' 'Jefferson is as precise and sensitive as ever, nonpareil in her scope and ability to synthesize the circus of traditions, arcs, and performances that make up a life, taking the role of stage trouper and spectator in turns … What an honor to settle in for the show alongside her.' 'Jefferson’s unique perspective and relentless honesty and self-examination ensure that there’s something worthwhile on every page … A dynamic, unflinchingly candid examination of the impacts of race and class on culture and the author’s own life.' 'Brave ... Revelatory ... Recall[s] a number of America’s greatest thinkers on race ... James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois.' (on Negroland) '[A] masterpiece ... A phenomenal study-cum-memoir about the black bourgeoisie.' (on Negroland)