Literature in Review
by Richard Barbieri, Ph.D.
The Bold World: A Memoir of
Family and Transformation
Jodie Patterson
Ballantine Books (2019)
A
s I looked for the right book for this gender issue, a dear friend gave me Jodie Patter-
son’s The Bold World. I immediately knew it was the perfect selection. Although Jodie’s is
the story of an extended family, and covers several generations, and much territory, her
book says more about gender than many scholarly treatises or essay collections. Gender roles
and expectations, gender and race, and changing family systems take up almost half the book
before its central gender topic even appears.
Patterson’s life from childhood to her late thirties is gender stereotypical and racially distinctive.
The daughter of a self-made Black millionaire, she enjoys the privileges of her class, while fac-
ing the challenges of adolescence and her own self-doubts. But her father smashes her desire
to attend graduate school for a degree in creative writing (after she graduates from Spelman
College) by announcing “Grad school is for gay, fat, or ugly women. There’s no place for you
there,” and following with the even more limiting “Stay focused. With your skin color you can
marry well.”
This sets Jodie on a precarious quest for self-and-role discovery, a quest that moves, often pain-
fully, from low-level editorial work to exotic dancing, public relations, and small business, as
she tries to determine who she wants to be rather than what others expect of her.
Page 24 Summer 2019
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