My Family and I

“In this intricate blend of personal history, poignant love story, and incisive social critique, Adam Gussow charts a path out of America’s stifling racial trap. My Family and I is a rousing invitation to see ourselves in one another and to summon the courage finally to forge the beloved community Dr. King envisioned—one sustained by hope, reciprocity, and the boundless possibility of our shared humanity. A must-read at a political moment when the colorblind ideal has been so cynically exploited.” – Thomas Chatterton Williams, author of Self-Portrait in Black and White: Family, Fatherhood, and Rethinking Race“My Family and I is a remarkable and thought-provoking book that offers an intimate exploration of race, identity, and the pursuit of beloved community in contemporary America. Gussow eloquently argues that the reification of so-called racial identities reflects long-standing divisions that we must acknowledge, do not need to maintain, and should arguably destroy.” – Dr. Sheena Michele Mason, author of The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race is the Future of Antiracism“In an America increasingly divided by the clash between those who seek power in the reductive, skin-deep world of identity politics and those who wish to remain within our greater humanity, Adam Gussow’s My Family and I offers a powerful argument for the latter. Gussow’s refusal to betray his humanity for this nefarious ideology is what gives this book of his its enduring and enlightening power. Most of all, it gives us hope.” – Eli Steele, filmmaker and director of Resegregating America (2021), What Killed Michael Brown? (2020), and How Jack Became Black (2018)“Gussow’s harrowing account of attending an anti-racist workshop is an edgy parable on the dangers of thinking in racial categories. He is a first-rate scholar whose earlier work probed racial wounds in the American past, but his stimulating new study lets us see that racial healing can be on the horizon in our society.” – Charles Reagan Wilson, editor-in-chief, The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture“My Family and I: A Mississippi Memoir is an unflinchingly challenging, provocative book that demands nuanced, careful thought. As an Ashkenazi Jewish and Black woman, I am grateful for the challenge that Adam Gussow’s book provides, and for the ways in which I was forced to consider my own belief systems as I read. What a gift.” – Marra B. Gad, author of The Color of Love: A Story of a Mixed-Race Jewish Girl“Adam Gussow’s quest to prove the possibility of a transracial beloved community takes him on a transformative odyssey from the streets and clubs of Harlem to Princeton to a revelatory life in contemporary Mississippi, playing and teaching the blues. More than a memoir, the lived experience of My Family and I boldly challenges racial orthodoxy at a critical moment in American history.” – Jerry Wasserman, author of Life Could Be a Dream: African American Blues, R&B, Gospel & Doo Wop, 1946-56“Adam Gussow has lived a full life, one filled with music and a search for meaning and harmony in a world rife with hierarchies, hatreds, and spiritual voids. His story tells us much about our country. It is brilliantly written, and reminds us that the search for the center of our humanity is a moral imperative that is not beyond our reach. I wish him success with this heartfelt and illuminating book.” – William S. Cohen, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and author of Love in Black and White: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Romance“One would struggle to find more trenchant analysis of race in America during this epoch in our experiment with democracy…. Gussow’s words ought to inspire nationwide conversation in 2025.” – Jay Wiener, Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger

Adam Gussow is a professor of English at the University of Mississippi and a professional blues harmonica player and teacher. The author of many books on the blues, including Mister Satan’s Apprentice: A Blues Memoir and Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition, he earned an AB and PhD from Princeton and an MA from Columbia. Satan & Adam, a 2018 documentary about his thirty-year, Harlem-based partnership with bluesman Sterling “Mr. Satan” Magee, screened on Netflix for several years. Gussow’s many honors include the C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature, the John G. Cawelti Award for Best Textbook/Primer in Popular and American Culture, and the Living Blues Award for Best Blues Book of 2017. His article, “Howard Men: Prince Jones, Carlton Jones, and the Evasions of Ta-Nehisi Coates,” was a Quillette Editors’ Choice of 2023.

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