LIFE NOTES

A moving, eloquent assortment of personal writings from the diaries of contemporary black women, collected by Bell-Scott (coeditor: Doublestitch: Black Women Write About Mothers and Daughters, 1991—not reviewed) and including excerpts from Alice Walker, Audrey Lorde, Rita Dove, Jamaica Kincaid, and others, as well as selections from lesser-known, unpublished writers. As much about the black woman's struggle to claim a place in a racist, sexist world as about the personal history of each individual writer, the entries here include reflections on everything from abortion to apartheid. The 49 contributors range in age from a nine-year-old Nigerian to a 64-year-old retired African-American telephone operator: all narrate, with stunning candor, the stories of their lives—stories that often include episodes of childhood sexual abuse, struggles with poverty and racism, and battles with cancer. The anthology is dedicated to lesbian poet/activist Audrey Lorde, who died in 1992 and whose cancer journals are among the most arresting here. Intimate, impassioned, often heartbreaking: for general readers as well as to students of African-American literature. Reading through it is immensely rewarding—like having an hourlong, tell-all phone conversation with a close friend.