This is a very thorough, meticulously researched and comprehensive biography of Lorraine Hansberry and I found it both interesting and illuminating. But it is also verges on the memoir (which the author acknowledges) of someone who obviously has enormous admiration and affection for Hansberry. So much so that the book felt too much like a hagiography, and for me the writing was overly subjective. Nothing really wrong with that essentially, but I prefer my biographies to show more of a balanced and nuanced view of the subject. Well worth reading, though.

At the beginning of this book, the author discusses her connections with and similarities to Lorraine Hansberry, and intimates that this will be a personal kind of biography. And while it is beautifully written and well-conceived as a biography, I never felt the connections Perry suggests are present. Instead, it's a good introduction to Hansberry and her closest friends and a few of her lovers, and it's a pleasant read, meandering from moment to moment in Hansberry's life. It emphasizes her social justice concerns and work, but it tells us that she was passionate rather than letting her own words do that work. It tells us that she was young and gifted and black, but quotes her own words only fleetingly. It's an excellent book, but that introduction promised so much more.

I am a member of the ALA Carnegie Medal Committee. This title made the 2019 Longlist but it did not make the Shortlist. See the complete Shortlist <a href="http://www.ala.org/awardsgrants/carnegieadult/short-lists"> here.

Although I haven't quite finished Looking for Lorraine (I'm at the 80% mark), I've decided to set out a few thoughts today to coincide with the publication of the book.

I first became aware of the name "Lorraine Hansberry" while watching Raoul Peck's powerful documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which explores racism in the US through the writings and reminiscences of James Baldwin. Referencing a meeting in 1963 with then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to discuss the state of interracial relations, Baldwin talks about a resplendent presence at the meeting, who stunned RFK with her determination about what needed to be done (not that RFK wanted to hear those things), but who unfortunately died young. That woman was Lorraine Hansberry and, having looked her up, I jumped at the opportunity to receive an advance copy of Looking for Lorraine for review purposes.

This biography is beyond good. Imani Perry does a wonderful job dragging Hansberry from the shadows, where her premature death confined her, and out into the array of black writers and activists that helped shape the struggle for racial equality in the 50s and 60s. As Perry says, James Baldwin and Nina Simone (both close friends of Lorraine's) were after the 60s criticised for saying uncomfortable things, however both were reinstated recently as important figures of the history of black struggle. This biography serves the purpose of allowing Lorraine to join them, take the place that she rightfully deserves, and be 'remembered fully' (p. 114), as she would have wanted.

The book touched me with its sensitive portrayal of Lorraine, a woman the writer never met (as she was born long after Lorraine's passing), but who she grew up feeling very close to partly due to her own interest in black history but also, importantly, due to her adoptive father's interest in and love for Lorraine Perry. So young Imani had privileged access to Lorraine in a way; her father's interest fuelled her own passion, which led to further research for the purposes of this book. One can also see several parallels between Lorraine and Imani: loyalty to the race; a passion of equality; a sharing of radical politics. Imani never obliterates her self from her account of Lorraine without, however, using the book as an opportunity to promote her own agenda. One gets the sense of the younger woman responding to Lorraine's work and life choices, as if the older woman was another self or role-model. The result is a wonderfully written book which carried me away with its rhythm and tenderness, but which is also thoroughly researched and effectively organised into chapters covering the following: Lorraine's childhood and university years, her radical politics, her marriage to a Jewish intellectual but also her sexual interest in and relationships with women, her plays and literary work, her friendship with James Baldwin and other important figures of the Black movement, and finally her death of cancer at the age of 34.

A timely and wonderful book that's worth more than five stars. Read it.

Thanks to netgalley and Beacon Press for the advance review copy.

I was super excited to read this book because I love Lorraine Hansberry and particularly enjoy getting a chance to teach A Raisin in the Sun when I teach sophomores.  I am not largely familiar with Hansberry's other stories, and I think that is one of the areas where this book really shines.  As I was reading, I found myself really appreciating the descriptions and events around each of the other works that Lorraine Hansberry wrote but that didn't rise to get any mainstream success.  I continually checked to see if my library had copies of these different novels and plays because they sounded incredibly interesting and radically different in many ways from A Raisin in the Sun.

Overall, I think that if you only know a little or nothing about Lorraine Hansberry, this book is an incredibly good read.  The background especially on her childhood and college years is interesting,and I think that Perry does a nice job of relating relevant stories and explaining how these events probably shaped Hansberry's views and art later in life.  I will admit to primarily only knowing that her father tried to buy a house in a white neighborhood when she was younger and a bit about her radical politics, so it was great to see this development of her politics framed by how she saw herself relating to the class divide.  I also am always taken when reading biographies by how bad I am at realizing what people were contemporaries of each other.  In this case, I was somewhat surprised that both Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Dubois were her mentors, since I associate them with an older generation.  Furthermore, I did not realize she was friends with James Baldwin and Nina Simone (two relationships which are really highlighted in the book and were fascinating).

If I have any complaints at all about the book it is the insistence that Lorraine Hansberry is a completely forgotten figure in history/art.  I think the overall point that maybe she should be better known or her beliefs on what her work meant should be thought about more is fair, but (and maybe this is just because I'm an English teacher) I feel like she is still quite strongly celebrated as a brilliant writer.  I think maybe my largest gripe here is that the author seems to believe that the more mainstream interpretation of Raisin in the Sun from when it was first performed is still the prevailing interpretation which I just do not agree with at all.  I think the way it is taught for the most part in current times is much closer to the way Hansberry wanted it to be interpreted (including how she would according to this book) than the more vanilla reasons that allowed it to be the first play by a black woman on Broadway.

Despite that small complaint, I really enjoyed this book.  I think I would recommend this book to anyone who likes A Raisin in the Sun or anyone who is interested in the Civil Rights Movement.  I particularly think this would be an interesting companion piece for students reading the play, at the very least pulling from the chapter about A Raisin in the Sun for it.

I received this as a digital galley from NetGalley.

I am hard pressed to dislike a literary biography but this one was exceptionally good.

I liked how Ms. Perry divulged gaps in the historical record and took care to not infer too much. Additionally, the structure of the book made it interesting to read. Instead of going strictly chronologically, Ms. Perry arranged the chapters by topic.

Also it made me want to reread A Raisin In The Sun which is always a good thing.