Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2020
272 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
In The Other Madisons, Bettye Kearse - a descendant of an enslaved cook and, according to oral tradition, President James Madison - shares her family story and explores the issues of legacy, race, and the powerful consequences of telling the whole truth.
For thousands of years, West African griots (men) and griottes (women) have recited the stories of their people. Without this tradition Bettye Kearse would not have known that she is a descendant of President James Madison and his slave, and half-sister, Coreen. In 1990, Bettye became the eighth-generation griotte for her family. Their credo—"Always remember—you're a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president"—was intended to be a source of pride, but for her, it echoed with abuses of slavery, including rape and incest.
Confronting those abuses, Bettye embarked on a journey of discovery—of her ancestors, the nation, and herself. She learned that wherever African slaves walked, recorded history silenced their voices and buried their footsteps: beside a slave-holding fortress in Ghana; below a federal building in New York City; and under a brick walkway at James Madison's Virginia plantation. When Bettye tried to confirm the information her ancestors had passed down, she encountered obstacles at every turn.
Part personal quest, part testimony, part historical correction, The Other Madisons is the saga of an extraordinary American family told by a griotte in search of the whole story.
"An African American pediatrician–turned–historical detective investigates her family's history—and, by extension, that of America...A Roots for a new generation, rich in storytelling and steeped in history." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A moving, beautifully told story that adds to our understanding of Madison along with African American genealogy and oral history." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Though Kearse's attempts to establish a genetic link to the president...are met with 'roadblocks,' she succeeds in portraying her family's tenacious rise in social standing across eight generations. This moving account asks essential questions about how American history gets told." - Publishers Weekly
"A compelling saga that gives a voice to those that history tried to erase...Poignant and eye-opening, this is a must-read." - Booklist
"A fascinating root-seeking odyssey. In this poignant search for a lost tie to a founding father, Kearse reckons with the equivocal link between DNA and family and illuminates the work of racial repair confronting us all." - Alondra Nelson, author of The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation after the Genome
"Bettye Kearse's searing eye for truth educated, awakened, and stunned me. The heroics and pain of the author's kindred—descendants of slaves and a president—illustrates a family and country built on the shoulders of slavery. An unbroken line of ancestral oral history combined with Kearse's research illuminates ten generations, from slavery to the present, in a continuing-battle against racism in which all Americans should fight. Kearse's generosity in presenting her hard-won truth is a gift I'll always remember with gratitude. I loved this page-turning book." - Randy Susan Meyers, author of Waisted and The Widow of Wall Street
"The Other Madisons is a tale that Bettye Kearse was literally born to tell...As she journeys in search of her deepest, most painful family roots, Kearse unfurls an intensely personal tale that is also a quintessentially American story. Confronting colonialism and cruelty, power and its abuse, the silencing of slaves and the fraught complexity of intertwined nations and individual lives, The Other Madisons crafts a new kind of record, one that illuminates the power of a woman taking charge of her own truth." - Paula Lee, PhD, historian and novelist
This information about The Other Madisons was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bettye Kearse is a retired pediatrician and geneticist. Her commentary "Our Family Tree Searches for Branches" appeared in the Boston Herald. "Destination Jim Crow" was published in River Teeth, listed as notable in The Best American Essays 2014, and nominated for the 2015 Pushcart Prize. "Mammy Warriors" is included in the anthology Black Lives Have Always Mattered. Her research for The Other Madisons was recently covered in the Washington Post. She lives in New Mexico.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
