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My Soul Looks Back

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My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir
AuthorJessica B. Harris
LanguageEnglish
SubjectAutobiography
GenreMemoir
PublisherScribner
Publication date
2017
Pages255
ISBN978-1-5011-2590-4 (Hardcover)

My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir is a memoir by cookbook author and food historian Jessica B. Harris,[1][2] particularly describing on her life and friendships with major black writers including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison in New York City in the 1970s.

Publication history

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Harris in 2017

Harris published the 255-page book with Scribner on March 9, 2017.[3]

Content and reception

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Publishers Weekly described the book as "a lively, entertaining, and informative recounting of a time and place that shaped and greatly enriched American culture,"[2] namely Harris's life as a young person in New York City in the 1970s amid black authors including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison; Harris was introduced to this circle through her romantic relationship with Sam Floyd, Baldwin's best friend.[4] Reviewing the book for The New York Times, critic Dwight Garner described it as having a "simmering warmth" and "was never, to this reader, uninteresting" even if it also had a "softness of focus", suggesting at times the book fails to "recall the best lines and jokes" from the literati Harris describes.[5]

References

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  1. ^ Evans, Dayna (May 9, 2017). "What It Was Like to Live Among James Baldwin and Maya Angelou in 1970s New York". The Cut. New York Magazine. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  2. ^ a b "Nonfiction Book Review: My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir by Jessica B. Harris. Scribner, $25 (272p) ISBN 978-1-5011-2590-4". Publishers Weekly. March 27, 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  3. ^ "MY SOUL LOOKS BACK by Jessica B. Harris". Kirkus Reviews. March 2, 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  4. ^ Larson, Susan (May 22, 2017). "Soul stirrer: In new memoir, culinary historian Jessica Harris looks back at a life well lived". The Advocate. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  5. ^ Garner, Dwight (9 May 2017). "'My Soul Looks Back' Warmly Recalls New York's Black Elite in the 1970s". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 July 2017.


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