Necessary Trouble

"In a powerful new memoir, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust details her experiences shedding the expectations of her insulated upbringing and the thoughtful courage it took to transcend the antiquated racial and gender biases of the time. This intricate narrative encapsulates the not-so-pleasant conflicts many struggled to overcome during the turbulent post-World War II period. Few overcame as successfully as Dr. Faust, and this publication should inspire those of us confronting similar challenges in today’s America." —Congressman James E. Clyburn

"Such a wonderful book. I can’t wait to give copies to my daughters. All young women should read this book. And everyone else, too." —Sally Mann, author of Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs

★ "Faust nimbly blends the personal and the political in this affecting memoir . . . Faust pulls off a brilliant synthesis, grounding the macro stresses of the period in her quest to distance herself from her culture of origin and sharpen her political sensibilities." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Necessary Trouble is a beautifully rendered coming-of-age narrative of a sensitive young woman—raised in a conservative white family of privilege in rural Virginia horse country—whose growing awareness of the suffocating conventions of gender gradually awakens her to the inequities of race. Through superb storytelling and delightfully lyrical prose, Drew Faust demonstrates, day-to-day, the inextricable interplay of class, gender, and race in mid-twentieth century America far more effectively than a scholarly treatise could ever achieve. Necessary Trouble is destined to be a classic of American memoir.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

"This gem of a memoir is a triumph. Drew Faust's rich portrait of the South she grew up in and how she and it went through radical transformation is a necessary book for our times." —Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

"An inviting, absorbing look at a privileged childhood in the segregated South and the birth of a questioning spirit." —Kirkus Reviews

"Drew Gilpin Faust speaks to us here not as Harvard's former president but as a member of a generation that had to navigate a world very different from the one it was born into. The result is a spectacular coming-of-age memoir that is at once deeply personal and highly relevant." —Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Justice on the Brink: A Requiem for the Supreme Court

"This riveting, brave, and poignant memoir shows historian Drew Faust at her best, placing her own youth on the map of history. While revealingly personal, Necessary Trouble is also a larger story of generational, gender, and racial divides, and of wars domestic and foreign. Faust’s account of growing beyond a Southern family hamstrung by its past, and transforming her sights via 'the movement' for civil rights and against the Vietnam war, stirringly evokes the moral seriousness impelling the rebellious 1960s generation." —Nancy F. Cott, author of Fighting Words: The Bold American Journalists Who Brought the World Home between the Wars

“Necessary Trouble makes for necessary reading: Drew Faust's riveting memoir describes a youth lived in the tumult of American history, from her privileged but uneasy childhood in the South (as a girl of nine she wrote to Eisenhower to condemn segregation) to her early engagement, as a high school and college student, in the vital progressive causes of the 60s, building alliances behind the Iron Curtain, participating in anti-war protests and, most abidingly, fighting for racial justice. Harvard University's first woman president offers us a narrative at once challenging and inspiring, and a way of living in these still, or newly, uncertain times." —Claire Messud, author of Kant's Little Prussian Head & Other Reasons Why I Write: An Autobiography in Essays

“This book chronicles the personal and academic journey of one of America’s most admired university presidents. The reader learns about a life dedicated to 'learning and examining, suffused with a sense of purpose.' That purpose for Faust has focused on social justice and seeking the truth. The book provides valuable insights on such issues as race and gender in America in the 60’s. John Lewis would be proud that this book is entitled Necessary Trouble.” —Freeman A. Hrabowski III, President Emeritus of UMBC