Author and TCNJ English professor Cassandra Jackson will read from her latest book, The Wreck: A Daughter’s Memoir of Becoming a Mother, on Wednesday, October 4 from 6:30–8 p.m. in TCNJ’s Mayo Concert Hall. The event is free and open to the public.
The Wreck is both an investigation into a family’s history and a look toward an unknown future, as Jackson simultaneously uncovers tragic events in her family’s past while struggling to start a family of her own.
From Penguin Random House:
As she moves back and forth between her girlhood and her journey to motherhood, Jackson reveals the chilling parallels between the harrowing inhumanity of Jim Crow medical care and the toxic discrimination that undergirds healthcare in the United States today. But as she traces the cascading effects of loss punctuated by racism, she also discovers a powerful legacy of fearless love and furious perseverance that she hopes to extend to a new generation.
As she moves back and forth between her girlhood and her journey to motherhood, Jackson reveals the chilling parallels between the harrowing inhumanity of Jim Crow medical care and the toxic discrimination that undergirds healthcare in the United States today. But as she traces the cascading effects of loss punctuated by racism, she also discovers a powerful legacy of fearless love and furious perseverance that she hopes to extend to a new generation.
In May, The Wreck was included at the top of a New York Times book review shortlist and featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday where Jackson was interviewed by program host Ayesha Rascoe. The book has received praise from Ebony, The Washington Post, The Root, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews, among others.
A discussion and book signing will follow the reading.
The event is sponsored by TCNJ’s Departments of English and African American Studies, the Office of the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society.
