The Hottest Water in Chicago

Notes of a Native Daughter

Gayle Pemberton shares the accumulated revelations of a lifetime of observation in 16 provocative autobiographical essays, interweaving her own history and that of her family with reflections on American literature, art, music, and film.

Building on the tradition of such writers as W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, but with a wisdom and sharp wit uniquely her own, Pemberton moves from the integration of a transient hotel in Chicago to a party on that city's Gold Coast; from journeys by train and the memories they provoke to reflections on race aboard ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; from the Mickey Mouse Club to the ghost of Emmett Till; from Harvard to Hollywood.

©1992 Gayle Pemberton (P)2018 Gayle Pemberton