| Made in Detroit: A Memoir Contributor(s): Clemens, Paul (Author) |
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ISBN: 1400075963 ISBN-13: 9781400075966 Publisher: Anchor Books OUR PRICE: $14.36 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2006 Annotation: Paul Clemens grew up in the northeast corner of Detroit, just south of the city's famed 8 Mile border. Born the year Detroit's first black mayor was elected--the legendary Coleman Young--Clemens's moving and affectionate memoir traces his own growth to maturity against the background of the city's long decline during Young's twenty years at the helm. "Made in Detroit describes what it was like to grow up white and working class in a city that had become emblematic of white flight and urban decay. Clemens writes with passion and unflinching honesty about the crime and the prejudices, both black and white, that marked his days in Detroit, and about the linguistic confusions that attend being a minority in a city where minorities are the majority. His neighborhood's common denominator, Catholicism, helped keep Detroit's disorder at a distance. Likewise, Clemens's father, a car enthusiast and weekend drag racer of the kind only Detroit can produce, helped keep at arm's length the racism that infected much of white Detroit. Though he may have grumbled about the corruption and inefficiency of the Young administration, he would not tolerate expressions of racial hostility. "Made in Detroit is the story of a young man's education in social and racial realities most writers would rather avoid. But it is also the story of a literary apprenticeship in the classic American mold. In addition to his youthful Catholicism, Clemens acquired another belief--in reading and writing--and he embraced the writer's vocation with the enthusiasm that only those raised in a household devoid of bookscan. Yet, in coming to grips with Detroit, and race relations in America in general, he discovered that there are places--geographic, mental, emotional--where even literature cannot help. This is a story about being caught in the middle: about being white in a black city, urban in suburban America, blue collar in an increasingly obsolete Rust Belt, and Catholic in a place where churches close at an unprecedented pace. Sparing no one--including himself--Clemens depicts with raw authenticity and redemptive grace the realities of one city's, and one family's, recent history. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Cultural, Ethnic & Regional - General - Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs |
| Dewey: B |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.2" W x 7.9" (0.55 lbs) 256 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Great Lakes - Cultural Region - Midwest - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Geographic Orientation - Michigan - Locality - Detroit, Michigan |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A New York Times Notable BookA powerfully candid memoir about growing up white in Detroit and the conflicted point of view it produced. Raised in Detroit during the '70s, '80s, and '90s, Paul Clemens saw his family growing steadily isolated from its surroundings: white in a predominately black city, Catholic in an area where churches were closing at a rapid rate, and blue-collar in a steadily declining Rust Belt. As the city continued to collapse--from depopulation, indifference, and the racial antagonism between blacks and whites--Clemens turned to writing and literature as his lifeline, his way of dealing with his contempt for suburban escapees and his frustration with the city proper. Sparing no one--particularly not himself--this is an astonishing examination of race and class relations from a fresh perspective, one forged in a city both desperate and hopeful. |