Synopses & Reviews
Once, as a small child, she realizes that her skin is a different color from that of her beloved parents, Jackie Kay embarks on a complicated and humorous journey to treasure the adoptive family that chose her, track down her birth parents--her Scottish Highland mother and Nigerian father--and embrace her unexpected and remarkable life.
In a book shining with warmth, humor, and compassion, she discovers that inheritance is about more than genes: that we are shaped by songs as much as by cells and that our internal landscapes are as important as those through which we move.
Taking the reader from Glasgow to Lagos and beyond, Red Dust Road is revelatory, redemptive, and courageous, unique in its voice and universal in its reach. It is a heart-stopping story of parents and siblings, friends and strangers, belonging and beliefs, biology and destiny, and love.
Review
"Starred Review. Kay's complex life story is fascinating on all fronts--cultural, emotional, and artistic. But it is her sparkling warmth, generous candor, depthless compassion, glinting humor, and linguistic pizazz that make this such a stellar chronicle of a deeply personal investigative and imaginative journey, a profoundly affecting inquiry into the enigmas of self and kinship, and a celebration of transcendent goodness." Booklist
Synopsis
A heart-warming book that answers the question: how do you define "family"?
About the Author
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Jackie Kay is a poet, novelist, and short story writer who is widely acclaimed for her work for children as well as for adults. She lives in Manchester, England.