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Shop nowSkinfolk
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Learn moreA haunting, poignant story of growing up in a mixed-race family in 1970s New Jersey, in the tradition of The Color of Water.
Magnanimous and charming, Bob Guterl knew that he could solve the racial problems bedeviling postwar America.
Determined to stave off impending global catastrophe, the larger-than-life judge and his resolute wife, Sheryl, launched a radical experiment, raising their two biological sons alongside four children adopted from Korea, Vietnam, and the South Bronx―the so-called “war zones of the American century”―in a white clapboard house with a white picket fence in small-town New Jersey.
In lyrical, often searing prose, Matthew Guterl, a renowned historian of race and their third-eldest child, recounts the ultimately troubling story of his family; his racially diverse siblings; and his idealistic parents, with their miragelike dreams of creating a racial utopia in an otherwise all-white community.
Chronicling the siblings’ coming-of-age in a recalcitrant, discriminatory society, Skinfolk peers behind that white picket fence, revealing many of the racial issues that continue to plague Americans today.
Matthew Pratt Guterl is the L. Herbert Ballou University Professor of Africana Studies and American Studies at Brown University. He is the award-winning author of four books, including Josephine Baker and the Rainbow Tribe. He lives in Rhode Island.
George Newbern has appeared in Father of the Bride, Father of the Bride II, Evening Star, Adventures in Babysitting, and many other films. On television, he has had roles on Scandal, Friends, Nip/Tuck, Hot in Cleveland, CSI, and more. He is also known for providing the voice of Superman in Justice League and for narrating audiobooks.
Reviews
“[Guterl] writes poignantly about his upbringing, particularly as the family and his siblings battled xenophobia and racism.”
“An earnestly felt, beautifully wrought story of an American family in all its complexity.”
“Guterl explores the ethics involved in his parents’ endeavor and confronts the consequences of even the best intentions.”
“Guterl focuses much of the story on himself and his closest siblings, Bear and Bug, and on the realities of growing up in a big family. But he is clear-eyed about his privilege, even within his family.”
“Transracial adoption will never empower adoptees of color or our white family members to sidestep the realities of privilege, bias, and racism; as Skinfolk shows, we will meet and experience these things in the most intimate of ways, within the microcosm of our own family.”
“Skinfolk explores a question we all face: What makes us kin?”
“[A] moving, beautifully written memoir.”
“With unflinching eyes, Matthew Pratt Guterl examines his family experiment with an academic’s precision.”
“The story of this family is unforgettable in its embrace of the personal and the political…A powerful read.”
“A chronicle of life, love, complexity, race, and above all, the meaning of the word ‘family.’ ”
“An achingly moving memoir…Matthew Pratt Guterl lays his scholar’s eye over a complex narrative exploring the joys and limitations of love, family, and adoption.”
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