Every Good-Bye Ain't Gone

Njeri grew up in Brooklyn and Harlem among African-American and West Indian kin. A reporter for the Los Angeles Times , she writes here of her childhood during the 1950s with her Harvard-educated father, a punishing alcoholic; her striving mother; and many other relatives. All spring immediately to life in a mix of ``family portraits and personal escapades.'' Njeri's grandfather, a doctor, was fatally injured in an automobile accident with a white driver in a Southern town; asking questions about the case 23 years later, she could find little information about the incident involving ``just another nigger.'' Of this and other experiences of bigotry, the author speaks plainly but with grace and wit, particularly when she seeks to understand others as well as herself, and when she discusses discarding her original name, Jill Moreland, in order to reclaim her ancestry. She is at her best reminding us of the harm done by racism and the harmony to be hoped for in mutually respectful society. Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Harper's, Essence and the Boston Globe. (Feb.)