Maggie's American Dream

November 3, 1988
Maggie's eldest child, the first of her five offspring to achieve advanced degrees, here remembers three generations of his black American family. Resurrecting the tradition of oral family history, Comer, a child psychiatrist, transcribes his mother's reminiscences. She was born in Mississippi in 1904 and matured in an extended sharecropping family, struggling against rampant poverty and racism. Her indomitable spirit, pride and financial acumen would later provide her own children a standard of living unusually high for most blacks and many whites of the Depression years. Interesting contrast is provided in the book's second part by the autobiographical account of the author's formative years. Descriptions of his gentle father's intolerable working conditions at a steel mill, which led to his premature death, are heartbreaking. As the author shows, the quest for personal honor, intellectual excellence and economic success in our bigoted society remains the most valued parental legacy of Maggie's children.

November 1, 1995
African American Maggie Comer was born in the beginnings of the 20th century. After her father died in a freak accident, she and her siblings were raised by a man who didn't care for them and wouldn't allow her to attend school. Maggie dreamed of a better life and, after running away from home, met her husband, a man who shared her dreams of success and education. Together they raised five children, who, between them, have 13 degrees. James, a psychologist at Yale, decided to tape his mother's story and hoped to learn more about his life and how his mother motivated him and his siblings. The first two-thirds of this audiobook consist of Maggie telling her story; the rest is the story from James's point of view. The program is well done, but listeners may want to know more about Maggie's views of events that happened during James's lifetime, such as the death of his father. Otherwise, this is a wonderful story of a family working together to find success. Readers Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis perform well, as usual. Recommended for African American studies and biography and family history collections.--Danna C. Bell-Russel, District of Columbia P.L.