Harrison Mooney

nonfiction/memoir - Black baby is adopted by white family and raised in "reactionary" Bible belt small town in BC, Canada. Basically all this racism is directed at him constantly (from the community and in his own adopted family) and his mother refuses to acknowledge that it is a problem, plus she attempts to manipulate him while he is in college and eventually excommunicates him when he can no longer abide by all of her super-strict rules. (CW/TW: child molestation and assault that happens to other kids in the community, corporal punishment/spankings, Black face, double standards, horrible group homes, institutionalized mental health patients, all kinds of racist slights and mistreatments, including brief acknowledgment of the history of forced separation/schooling of First Nations kids and various inhumane horrors of the treatment of enslaved people) When he reaches 19, Harrison is given the option to contact his birth parents, and thankfully his birth mother (who was forced to stay away from him by the adoptive mother) is much more loving and understanding.

This is difficult to read at first, with his childhood being so full of horrible treatments of every kind, but as he becomes more aware of the injustices and stops blaming himself it gets easier--the whole book is riveting and all-too-real.… (mehr)