cover image My Soul Is My Own: Oral Narratives of African American Women in the Professions

My Soul Is My Own: Oral Narratives of African American Women in the Professions

Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis, Etter-Lewis Gwe, Gwe Etter-Lewis. Routledge, $20.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-415-90560-2

This jargon-heavy book is disjointed but contains some interesting analysis. Etter-Lewis, who teaches English at Western Michigan University, interviewed more than 80 women, college-educated between 1920 and 1940 and here presents excerpts from nine of those interviews. However, because fictional names are used for people and places, the narratives lack important details; moreover, the author's decision to leave interjections like ``um'' and awkward repetitions in her text makes the narratives difficult to read. Etter-Lewis's discussion of the narratives explores the influence of family on the women's decision to go to college: many of the women saw their fathers as mentors, and the author notes that they reported their fathers' words and wishes through direct quotation. Etter-Lewis's subjects were often second-generation college graduates and viewed their mothers as active and competent women. After discussing how the women faced both sexism and racism, Etter-Lewis goes on to examine oral and written autobiographies of black women like Zora Neale Hurston. She concludes that oral narratives, given their multiple layers of meaning, can reveal more than written memoirs. (May)