Unafraid of the Dark: A Memoir - Hardcover

A former editor of The New York Times Book Review describes growing up poor in Chicago in the 1960s and becoming one of the first black women at Yale, and explains why recent changes in the welfare system will keep her story from being repeated. 50,000 first printing. Tour.

ning memoir, Rosemary Bray describes growing up poor in Chicago in the 1960s and becoming one of the first black women at Yale--and she shows why changes in the welfare system make it virtually impossible for her inspiring story to happen today.

"Certain things shape you, change you forever," Bray writes. "Years later, long after you think you've escaped, some ordinary experience flings you backward into memory. Being poor is like that. Living surrounded by fear and rage is like that. I grew up hating the cold, dreading the approach of night. Thirty years later, a too-cold room at night can trigger a flash of terror."

When Rosemary Bray's mother decides to apply for welfare, it creates a rift between her parents, and yet it proves to be the salvation of the family, enabling the Bray children to be educated--and education was the one thing her parents agreed upon as the only way to a better life. Bray writes movingly about her resourceful mother, who joins