My Song: A Memoir
“An honest, in many ways important and genuinely revelatory autobiography. . . .My Songreveals, Belafonte was more than celebrity eye candy, burnishing his image with a little politically correct politicking. He not only talked the talk, but walked the walk. . . .My Songis more than fitting denouement for a life well lived.” —Curt Schleier,Seattle Times“InMy Song, a brave and spellbinding memoir written withVanity Faircontributing editor Michael Shnayerson, Belafonte tells a sweeping story . . . riveting . . . In these days of national and global uncertainty, with the numbers of poor steadily rising, there are lessons aplenty in the life of Harry Belafonte, as told in this surprising and revelatory book.” —Wil Haygood,Washington Post“ . . . engrossing autobiographical account of a life devoted in equal parts to entertainment and social causes.My Songis rich with vivid scenes of Belafonte working as an adviser, mediator, fundraiser and implementer with such players as John and Robert Kennedy and King.” —Tom Nolan,San Francisco Chronicle “Here is a gorgeous account of the large life of a Harlem boy . . . Scenes of extravagant waste, scenes of righteous anger—rich contradictions abound—with little attempt to explain them away, a mark of the honest autobiographer.” —Garrison Keillor,New York Times Book Review “Absorbing . . .” —Joshua Jelly-Schapiro,New York “To read Harry Belafonte's new memoir,My Song, is to discover a man who has packed enough life for 10 people into 84 years.” —“Morning Edition,” NPR “Somewhere amid the accounts of when he became the first artist to sell a million copies of an album, the first black leading actor to romance a white leading actress in a major Hollywood film, and the man who was asked to help pick out the clothes that Martin Luther King Jr. would be buried in, you realize just how extraordinary Harry Belafonte’s life has been. If Belafonte had simply pursued one strand of that life - the immensely popular singer, the Tony Award-winning actor, the powerful political and social activist - it would have made fascinating material for a book. That he managed to cram all three into his 84 years makesMy Song, his captivating memoir written with Michael Shnayerson, not only a sometimes exhausting chronicle of Belafonte’s own story but an intriguing look at US history from the late ’40s to the present. . . . One of the book’s triumphs involves the way Belafonte and Shnayerson manage to capture Belafonte’s distinctive voice . . . You can almost hear him narrate the story in his stately rasp.” —Sarah Rodman,The Boston Globe “Bracingly opinionated autobiography from an American original, still provocative in his ninth decade.” —Kirkus(starred)