Title: One drop
First published: 2007
Description: Two months before he died of cancer, renowned literary critic Anatole Broyard called his grown son and daughter to his side, intending to reveal a secret he had kept all their lives and most of his own: he was black.  But even as he lay dying, the truth was too difficult for him to share, and it was his wife who told Bliss that her WASPy, privileged Connecticut   childhood had come at a price.  Ever since his own parents, New Orleans Creoles, had moved to Brooklyn  and began to "pass" in order to get work, Anatole had learned to conceal his racial identity.  As he grew older and entered the ranks of the New York   literary elite, he maintained the facade.   Now his daughter Bliss tries to make sense of his choices and the impact of this revelation on her own life.  She searches out the family she never knew in New York  and New Orleans  , and considers the profound consequences of racial identity.  With unsparing candor and nuanced insight, Broyard chronicles her evolution from sheltered WASP to a woman of mixed race ancestry.
Subjects: Passing (Identity), Family, American Authors, Nonfiction, Authors, American, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Authors, biography, New York Times reviewed
People: Bliss Broyard
Time periods: 20th century