Fire Shut Up in My Bones

The New York Times columnist recounts growing up in rural Louisiana in this "brave and powerful memoir" of poverty, abuse, sexuality, and perseverance ( Publishers Weekly). Charles M. Blow's mother was a fiercely driven woman with five sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry at a factory near their segregated Louisiana town, where slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back, missing every shot, thanks to "love that blurred her vision and bent the barrel." As the baby of the family, Charles was deeply attached to his "do-right" mother. Until one day that divided his life into Before and After—the day an older cousin sexually abused the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to become one of America's most innovative and respected public figures is a stirring, redemptive journey that works its way into the deepest chambers of the heart.