{"product_id":"9780593241103_how-far-to-the-promised-land","title":"How Far to the Promised Land","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrom the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003econtributing opinion writer and award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eReading While Black, \u003c\/i\u003ea riveting intergenerational account of his family's search for home and hope \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Powerful . . . McCaulley uses examples of his own family's stories of survival over time to remind readers that some paths to the promised land have detours along the way.\"--\u003ci\u003eThe Root\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA \u003ci\u003ePUBLISHERS WEEKLY \u003c\/i\u003eBEST BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor much of his life, Esau McCaulley was taught to see himself as an exception: someone who, through hard work, faith, and determination, overcame childhood poverty, anti-Black racism, and an absent father to earn a job as a university professor and a life in the middle class. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut that narrative was called into question one night, when McCaulley answered the phone and learned that his father--whose absence defined his upbringing--died in a car crash. McCaulley was being asked to deliver his father's eulogy, to make sense of his complicated legacy in a country that only accepts Black men on the condition that they are exceptional, hardworking, perfect. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe resulting effort sent McCaulley back through his family history, seeking to understand the community that shaped him. In these pages, we meet his great-grandmother Sophia, a tenant farmer born with the gift of prophecy who scraped together a life in Jim Crow Alabama; his mother, Laurie, who raised four kids alone in an era when single Black mothers were demonized as \"welfare queens\"; and a cast of family, friends, and neighbors who won small victories in a world built to swallow Black lives. With profound honesty and compassion, he raises questions that implicate us all: What does each person's struggle to build a life teach us about what we owe each other? About what it means to be human? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eHow Far to the Promised Land \u003c\/i\u003eis a thrilling and tender epic about being Black in America. It's a book that questions our too-simple narratives about poverty and upward mobility; a book in which the people normally written out of the American Dream are given voice.","brand":"Esau McCaulley","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40898322825265,"sku":"9780593241103","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0571\/9926\/3793\/files\/9780593241103.jpg?v=1769589415","url":"https:\/\/bakerbookhouse.com\/products\/9780593241103_how-far-to-the-promised-land","provider":"Baker Book House ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}