Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify: Essays

by Carolyn Holbrook

The compassionate and redemptive story of a prominent Black woman in the Twin Cities literary community

Carolyn Holbrook’s life is peopled with ghosts—of the girl she was, the selves she shed and those who have caught up to her, the wounded and kind and malevolent spirits she’s encountered, and also the beloved souls she’s lost and those she never knew who beg to have their stories told. “Now don’t you go stirring things up,” one ghostly aunt counsels. Another smiles encouragingly: “Don’t hold back, child. Someone out there needs to hear what you have to say.”

Once a pregnant sixteen-year-old incarcerated in the Minnesota juvenile justice system, now a celebrated writer, arts activist, and teacher who helps others unlock their creative power, Holbrook has heeded the call to tell the story of her life, and to find among its chapters—the horrific and the holy, the wild and the charmed—the lessons and necessary truths of those who have come before. In a memoir woven of moments of reckoning, she summons stories born of silence, stories held inside, untold stories stifled by pain or prejudice or ignorance. A child’s trauma recalls her own. An abusive marriage returns to haunt her family. She builds a career while raising five children as a single mother; she struggles with depression and grapples with crises immediate and historical, all while countenancing the subtle racism lurking under “Minnesota nice.”

Here Holbrook poignantly traces the path from her troubled childhood to her leadership positions in the Twin Cities literary community, showing how creative writing can be a powerful tool for challenging racism and the healing ways of the storyteller’s art.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Essays, Race, Writing, Womens, Biography Memoir

200 pages, Paperback

First published July 21, 2020

About the author

Carolyn Holbrook is a writer, educator, and longtime advocate for the healing power of the arts. She is the author of an essay collection, Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify (University of MN Press, 2020), a chapbook, Earth Angels (Spout Press 2020), and is co-author with Arleta Little of MN civil rights icon, Dr. Josie R. Johnson’s memoir, Hope In the Struggle (University of MN Press 2019). Her personal essays have been published widely, most recently in A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota (MN Historical Society Press 2016) and Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (MN Historical Society Press 2015). She is the recipient of three Minnesota State Arts Board grants (2015, 2018, 2020) and a MRAC Next Step grant (2019). In 2016, she was awarded a 50 over 50 award from AARP/Pollen Midwest.

Holbrook was the first person of color to win the Minnesota Book Awards Kay Sexton Award (2010). She is founder and artistic/executive director of More Than a Single Story for which she won a MN Women’s Press Changemaker award in 2015, and was founder and director of SASE: The Write Place (1993-2006). She teaches creative writing at the Loft Literary Center and other community venues, and at Hamline University, where she won the Exemplary Teacher award in 2014.

Reviews

[pagesofchapters | demi · Rating 5 out of 5]

*arc received by netgalley*


I received an arc of this book a few weeks ago and I let me tell you, this book was an absolutely incredible experience to read. It was inspiring, heartbreaking, and so moving all at once. The writing was so beautiful and so well done that it was incredibly easy to read and really take in everything that was being told. I thoroughly enjoyed the way this book was set up and I really appreciated that each chapter covered a different story from the authors life in which was written with the purpose of sharing a not only a story to the reader but a lesson as well. Getting a glimpse into the authors life was such a privilege and this book really made me feel so many emotions, it truly took me to each scene with such detail. The way the author wrote this book truly made me really feel a connection I never expected to feel from it and I would highly recommend this book to absolutely anyone and everyone!

[Olga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I requested "Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify" by Carolyn Holbrook on NetGalley because of the title. I have always been a sucker for an intriguing title. When the memoir opens, Carolyn is visited by Liza, an ancestor, who implores her "to tell our story." From there, we travel with the writer as she discusses her history, taking us from her time as a pregnant 16-year-old in the Minnesota juvenile justice system to her celebrated career as a writer, educator, and activist. We learn about her family and the relationships she's built with her five children, even tackling how hard it is to date when you have children, the importance of teachers and how they affected her, and her impact on the education and writing community in the Twin Cities. We learn how she juggles all of these things while tackling the subtle and overt racism surrounding her, including her family's own internalized racism as well as "Minnesota Nice." "Minnesota Nice" refers to Minnesotans’ brand of niceness, which is polite yet reserved, and substituting passive-aggressive comments for confrontation. We see the uncensored version of "Minnesota Nice" in the interaction between the writer and her voice instructor, who is helping her with an audition.

This memoir is short in comparison to the history the writer covers, clocking in at 200 pages. Given the title and opening, I thought we would be spending more time with ghosts but that felt limited. Don't get me wrong; we spent time with influential people in her life - Grandpa Barney, Miss Johnson, her 8th grade English teacher. She mentions another teacher, Natalie Goldberg, who had an affect on her. Natalie may not remember her anymore but the writer will remember her for the rest of her life. The mark of a good teacher goes a long way.

I truly loved getting to know the writer, especially as an educator. She sounds like an excellent teacher, concerned with understanding her students as individuals, changing her lesson plans to fit her style so they're authentic to her AND beneficial to her students. This includes sharing stories of her background in hopes of building a bridge to them.

I am trying to do better of examining my own privilege when it comes to critiquing memoir since I have an MFA. One lesson that was consistently repeated in my classes was "show, don't tell" and when I was reading this memoir, I kept thinking, stop telling, show us the scene. In some ways, the memoir felt disjointed because we were traveling from one event to another. There were so many important scenes where we could have lingered with the writer as she processed the event, or that I felt I was dropped into something that could have been elaborated on but was wrapped with a sentence or two. But again, is this a feeling I had because of my education or is this something others will feel as well?

Thank you to NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for an advanced reading copy, scheduled for release on 07/21/2020.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Tell Me Your Name and I’ll Testify, Carolyn Holbrook shares her life journey as a black woman in the Twin Cities and how the literary community was the stepping stone of personal growth, redemption, and a success.

I loved how Carolyn’s memoir shared life stories that will inspire the reader. Her drive to persevere is relentless. When faced with many trails and tribulations, including poverty racism, teen pregnancy, an abusive spouse, and single parenthood, Carolyn not only found a way to overcome but rise above whatever tried to pull her down.

I loved how Carolyn gave the reader an opportunity to see life through her lens. I always find seeing the world and how society treats those within it from multiple perspectives is not only very important in personal growth but in ensuring our society continues a progressive growth of acceptance and equality. I thank Carolyn for this opportunity.

What I found most difficult about this memoir was it’s format. It was made up of short essays of sorts, and had little fluidity. So it felt like she was all over the place. I’d liked to have had a little more tying her stories together. Especially the beginning of the book where she talks about a diseased relative visiting her and telling her to share her story. I would have liked to see this thread continue throughout the story by concluding each section with a “life’s takeaway”, as I feel it would make the story more meaningful in the sense of why it was being shared, especially since as is, there is little closure for the reader.

With that being said, this is a powerful and touching story that could be very impactful on those who need to hear it.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for an eARC in exchange for my fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

[Dana K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carolyn's tale is an inspiring one but one that underlines the uphill battle people of color need to fight each and every day to get ahead, be heard and find peace and happiness in this world. She begins by describing her childhood which was marred by divorce and an entanglement as a teenager that left her pregnant and in juvenile detention. Not the most auspicious start! But Carolyn pulls herself up by her bootstraps and starts her own secretarial business which leads to teaching and writing which leads to awards and ultimately lives made better by her good influence. She talks a lot about her drive to get off foodstamps and out of poverty and just how hard it truly was even though she was working unbelievably hard. There are several hard sections that detail domestic abuse for both her and her daughter.

Memoirs are always hard to rate as there is a fine line between constructive criticism and judging how a person chooses to tell their story. The content within this story is nothing if not motivating for all who read it. It is also enlightening about the challenges BIPOC people face even when they are working their hardest for the same education and job opportunities as white people. I think that essays didn't quite flow in a way that was intuitive to me but that just may be my preference since I don't read essays compilations a lot.

Thanks to Netgalley and University of Minnesota Press for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Krystelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a heartbreaking and uplifting insight into the world of the author and exactly how her identity has been politicised and fetishised throughout her life, and her amazing efforts to build a career and care for her children in an uncertain set of circumstances where there were many things that went against her. I really appreciated the anecdotes that the author laid out in this book, as well as the quotes that were incorporated into the essays.

I think more than anything I appreciated the highlighting of the micro and macro aggressions that people of colour constantly face in their lives- with a particular standout being the nurse who had cared for her after she had given birth and his bizarre fetishisation of her identity- there is such an innate danger that comes with that kind of language and behaviour. I appreciated that the author turned the narrative to building a better world for her children, and how much she had managed to give back to a world that had maltreated her so very egregiously. This book is particularly necessary in our current world, and I appreciate that I had the privilege of reading it early.

[Ashley Bostrom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say, I really struggled with this book. I’m not a fan of unreliable narrators in fiction and so I really don’t like them in nonfiction. Positives about the book: Holbrook is a solid writer, I’m interested in the work she did in the Minneapolis writing scene, and I love learning about what Minneapolis was like in the past. Negatives about the book: She believes she has the “gift of sight” and casually mentions it or other psychic abilities in friends/acquaintances, there is a chapter devoted to her meditation and how she was “transported back in time” to watch herself be born, and the flow of the book feels disjointed – I realized why when I looked through the publication history and found that the earliest of the essays were published in 1993 and the latest in 2019. I wanted to like the book much more than I did, but I prefer my nonfiction quite a bit more realistic. I wish the blurb had been a bit more explicit about her beliefs in the otherworldly, though perhaps I shouldn’t have written it off as figurative.

[Kristin Boldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and powerful collection of essays. Holbrook shares her personal stories like the gifts they are, of her journeys in single motherhood, teaching, writing, and community advocacy. I'm in awe of her persistence despite the many obstacles she writes about here, and so impressed by her many achievements, which include this book.

Some reviewers comment that the book is repetitive, or disjointed. I didn't find this, but in any case, this is a collection of different pieces, published separately over a number of years, so is not meant to be read as a linear, singlular narrative--it's an essay collection, not a conventional memoir.

[Sruthi Narayanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved reading these essays about Holbrook's life journey -- from being incarcerated at 16, to becoming a prominent figure in the Twin Cities literary community -- and how writing can be both a healing power and a powerful way to combat racism.

I think this collection could have benefitted from a *slightly* tighter edit, but I even hesitate to say this because I worry about losing the authenticity that's part of what makes this collection so great. There's such an easy intimacy here; reading this felt like having a cup of coffee with the author.

[Kyra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book received for free through NetGalley for an honest review.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to read this book. It offers a view into a life different than mine that needs to be read. This book was written well and flows between all the different stories as the recollections deviate from the main timeline. I love how it was all put together.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Thanatos-on-the-Shelf's meat puppet has been teaching Carolyn Holbrook's essay "Say What?" for years, the long-awaited reading of her collection Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify has just come to fruition. While these are clearly memoir-style essays, they bring a much larger portrait than the author's life, touring neighborhoods in the Twin Cities and establishing a history, both good and bad, that persists today.

[Bethany Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the intimacy and rawness and emotion of this eclectic collection of essays.

[Jessica Cabeen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful read and incredible story. Ms Holbrook’s work will stay with me for a long time.

[Liliana Silva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC !
I requested this book because I was really intrigued by the title and the beginning was amazing.
But as I was reading it became too much, for me the book was all over the place, she was talking about rape and then moved on to a son or a ex.
Me personally didn't feel closure in anything she told us about.
Which is sad because I truly wanted to like this one...
1,5⭐

[Dora Okeyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book took me through Carolyn's life, one story at a time and in her writing I felt such a motherly tone reaching out to me and revealing moments of strength, weakness and uncertainty- and the feeling I came out with at the end of the book is a calm feeling. A gentle reminder that I can get up when I fall down and while at it, help others get back up.
She shares all this through writing, how powerful is that?
Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC. I hope that anyone who comes across this book is touched by her story, challenged to write their own and to uplift others as well- we certainly need it at such a time.

[Laura Smith Ramsborg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring and well-written. Holbrook overcame many obstacles, including but not limited to systemic racism, to reach success. I admire her as a writer, mother, and fellow educator.

[Isabelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify // by Carolyn Holbrook

From the NetGalley description: "The compassionate and redemptive story of a prominent Black woman in the Twin Cities literary community."

Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify is Carolyn Holbrook's story about her trials and tribulations as she grows up and then raises her own children in and out of poverty. There are many examples of the everyday racism she had to endure as well as topics, such as sexual assault, poverty, and generational curses.

I want to start by saying this book was not what I expected based on the title and the beginning chapter. Throughout the whole book, I was waiting to learn about the woman that appeared to her and was surprised when I reached the end without finding out more. Having said that though, this has still been very eye-opening and kept me drawn in the entire time. I enjoyed the way Holbrook told her story and am awed by her accomplishments. She is a strong woman that worked with what she had and showed what can be accomplished when you set your mind to it.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

[Goldentheponyboy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Shame that started when his great-great-great-grandparents were shackled and forced to walk through the Door of No Return, locked up on ships that carried them through the Middle Passage shitting and puking all over themselves and their relatives, friends, and neighbors chained close together like they were in a can of sardines, then stripped of their history, their identity, their language, their religion. Shame passed down to him through three or four generations of family members who suffered the pain and humiliation that started with slavery and mutated into deep anger and self-hatred, one of the far-reaching effects of the phenomenon that Dr. Joy DeGruy has coined post-traumatic slave syndrome."

"At that moment I remembered every negative image I had ever heard of Black women—oversexed, breeder, wet nurse, mammy, hostile, nappy-headed ho. Gretel’s words named something I had felt vaguely all my life but could not describe with words of my own. The cautionary warnings from our mothers and grandmothers: “You gotta work harder and be better if you want to be seen as just as good as white girls”; “You gotta go through a lot of pain to be beautiful” (translation: keep your hair straightened and your butt looking flatter); Billie Holiday’s lyrics, “Southern trees bear strange fruit . . . black bodies hanging from the poplar tree”; the blue eyes that Toni Morrison’s character Pecola prayed for, believing that they would stop the abuse she was suffering, stop her from being seen as “dirt”; the horrific story of the Hottentot Venus, the orphaned eighteenth-century South African woman whose large buttocks and extended labia caused her Dutch enslavers to turn her into a sideshow attraction; the degrading ways we Black women are depicted in movies or shaking our asses in hip-hop videos; the ways we are devalued in school and the workplace; how our men who reject us and men of other races, who look past us or leer at us with hidden lust.

Unfortunately, we are still struggling with this perception. On June 27, 2008, the Atlanta Journal–Constitution reported that Chiman Rai, a retired math professor, was sentenced to life in prison for having paid a hit man $10,000 to murder his son’s African American wife. A native of India, Rai feared that the marriage would cast a stigma on his family, explaining with no remorse that India’s rigid caste system deems Blacks the lowest caste, and Black women the absolute lowest, since women are believed to be lower than men in his culture.

I HAVE THREE BEAUTIFUL, intelligent daughters. I have had to help them maintain their self-images over and over again, even as I’ve attempted to heal my own. I also fully understand the horror of what is happening to our young men. I have a son who was incarcerated for ten years in the federal penitentiary. But there seems to be a conspiracy of silence around our girls and women. Could it be that in large part our incarceration is invisible? That we are locked up in our bodies?

Like countless Black mothers, I have worked hard to train my daughters to be proud of who they are in a world that would have them be ashamed of their darkness. For Black women, loving ourselves and passing that self-love down to our daughters and our granddaughters is a difficult task. Centuries of negation often makes us feel like we need to adopt a hard, protective shell, which is either praised as strength or dismissed as hostility. In short, we turn ourselves into stone."

[CTEP]

For book club this month I read Carolyn Holbrook’s memoir Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify. Holbrook is a local Black author who has been part of the Twin Cities writing scene for more than four decades. The memoir traces her life from childhood to her present-day work as a creative writing instructor at Hamline, with later chapters exploring her perspectives on the experience of Black Minnesotans in Minneapolis, particularly with crime and the criminal justice system.
Holbrook grew up in Minneapolis and became a teenage parent at the age of seventeen, raising her son without the help of her family or partner. She moved east in her early twenties and survived an abusive marriage, before moving back to Minneapolis to raise five children on her own. Once she realized that she could help to support her family with freelance work as a typist and copyeditor, she decided to pursue her dreams of writing. Holbrook went on to build a reputation as a community leader, starting successful community-focused writing programs including the Whittier Writers’ Workshop. Throughout her work, she focused on responding to community needs and empowering community members to embrace creative writing as a form of expression and empowerment. Holbrook has led a long and successful career in the Minneapolis arts scene and continues to be a leader today (I didn’t realize until partway through the memoir why I recognized her name – she was the co-author of Dr. Josie Johnson’s memoir Hope in the Struggle, which I read for January book club. Holbrook clearly believes in the importance of community leaders in Minneapolis relaying their stories to younger generations).
One of the central themes of Holbrook’s memoir is the power of storytelling; the opening chapter describes an experience of being visited by the spirit of an enslaved ancestor, who commanded Holbrook to “tell her story.” This inspired the title of the memoir; despite a difficult upbringing, Holbrook writes compassionately and kindly about her family members and tells the stories of the generation prior. One of the most moving chapters in the book is about her experience teaching creative writing classes for teen parents at Minneapolis South High School. She discovers that the students don’t respond well to her class until she decides to open up to them about her own experience of teen parenthood and lays out explicitly what she hopes to achieve through having them cultivate the craft of writing. Holbrook’s observations on teaching, on being open and honest with your students, I found really moving and made me think about the dynamics in the computer classes that I teach.
All in all, I found this a compelling and well-written memoir and would recommend it to other CTEPs. Holbrook provides insight into the growth of the Twin Cities nonprofit world in the 80s and 90s that I think today’s nonprofit employees will find to be interesting context, and her thoughts on race and the Black experience of living in Minneapolis are thought-provoking, particularly given how she contrasts her experiences as a Black teenager in the 1960s with the world of today’s teens. Definitely recommend, particularly given the chance to support a local author!

[Mia | The Bookish Feminist]

This collection of essays, compiled and expertly interwoven to form a memoir, and what a memoir it is. Carolyn Holbrook is a master of her craft. She is able to convey eloquently and seamlessly her own experiences - the challenges, the microaggressions, the overt racism, the family she loves, the work she found herself giving herself to - and situates those personal experiences within the context of the broader ongoing fight for equity and justice in our country.

The first essay had me in tears from the start. There is a poignancy, a sometimes chilling connection to her ancestors, a relentless dedication to helping youth succeed, and an openness in talking about and reflecting on her own experiences that makes Tell Me Their Names and I Will Testify impossible to put down. Holbrook is a staple in my own community, and this collection of essays will make it easy to see why.

The organization of the essays is also quite brilliant. It feels like a conversation - albeit one with the most eloquent person I’ve ever talked to. The way she goes from story to story is never haphazard. Rather, it feels like she has a narrative in mind at all times and introduces experiences and characters at just the right time to further that narrative. It reminds me of a way of speaking I often employ, which is to start by talking about some background relating to “this” before finally introducing what “this” is. You get the context and some preliminary thoughts - almost a prologue - before actually getting to the thesis. And I love that, not only because it reads like we readers get to be part of her fluid train of thought but also because each story really is interrelated, informing the next and informed by the previous and connected in meaningful ways. Sometimes those connections are explicit and sometimes it’s the feeling they leave you with, or a similar fight for justice and equity experienced by different people in her life. The organization also allows each reader to make their own connections, to see how an experience of meeting the spirit of her ancestor is connected to her work with youth is connected to her children’s lives. I found it all quite brilliantly interwoven, and I’ve gone back to several of the stories already to re-digest them and further reflect on all of their nuances.

Tell Me Their Names and I Will Testify is powerful, touching, and igniting in its messages, it’s structure, and it’s reflections. I cannot wait to add this to my library when it releases, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone. You can spend 15 minutes reading one essay or read it in its entirety in one sitting, and it will make us all more aware of systemic oppression, each of our place and role in our society, and increase our compassion. Holbrook is a magnificent writer and I’m really grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for my advance copy.

[Anita Ojeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my quest to diversify my reading selections, I came across this title by a Black woman hailed as the ‘darling of the Twin Cities literary community.’ I almost put it down halfway into the first essay, though, because the author started talking about a visitation from ghosts. Ghosts kind of creep me out. But I realized that if I truly wanted to learn from other cultures, religions, and ways of seeing, thinking, and being, I would have to keep reading without judgment.

I’m glad I did. This collection of essays paints the broad strokes of a Black woman’s journey. Reading the book reminded me of looking through a stranger’s out-of-sequence photo albums. Snapshots of life vividly portrayed with poignant color and flavor offered on the coffee table of life.

The reader must mull over and store the wisdom and stories of each essay in order to better hear the wisdom and stories of the essays that follow.

I’ve long known the narrative of the Welfare rolls filled with minorities to be false. Now I know just how damaging that narrative is from the pen of someone who dealt with the demeaning system. As an educator, Holbrook helped me understand the importance of vulnerability and honesty with one’s students. Our stories help others learn and make sense of their own stories.

I often wonder what one thing (or group of things) will help a student escape the cycle of poverty. It’s not just receiving a good education, either. Building resilience in an individual takes a community of believers, come alongsiders, encouragers, and picker-uppers. Those of us in supporting roles cannot give up just because the going seems tough or the task impossible. Neither can we ever forget that we play a supporting role—we are Yodas, not Luke Skywalkers.

If you’re looking to broaden your cultural understanding and think about tough topics such as the false narratives of the ‘Welfare Mom,’ this book is for you. Maybe you’re simply looking for a book because you don’t want others to think you’re a Karen. Without ever saying the words ‘white privilege,’ you’ll have a better understanding of what it is and what it isn’t.

And if you’ve ever thought that words can’t wound, think again. The words we use, the terms we pigeonhole people with—they matter. Just because someone feels put on the spot and doesn’t call you on your word choice doesn’t mean your words don’t offend or wound. Listen, read, and learn.

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify is a uniquely written memoir, using a compilation of essays. Written by Carolyn Holbrook as she explores experiences in her life as a Black American woman in Minneapolis/St. Paul area, Minnesota. With a challenging upbringing, Holbrook finds herself a teenage mother forced to drop out of high school. She explores the systemic oppression the government welfare system puts her in: from an abundance of paperwork which leads her to lose time which could be spent with her children, to the grocery store checkout worker who looks down upon her for paying with food stamps (and the feeling of shame which follows). Determined to give her children a better life, Holbrook busts her butt to get out of the suffocating grasps of the system. Along the way, she must deal with racism and oppression, both personal and systemic.

Holbrook has been the recipient of many awards, including but not limited to her work in getting more accessible writing classes to the lower income, minority communities in the Twin Cities area. She founded multiple programs and organizations which worked to achieve that and more in the literary arts world. Holbrook is an incredibly successful woman and literary arts advocate. Due to the systemic racial oppression in America, she had to work ten times as hard for that success.


The greatest challenge in reading this book was the sometimes lack of organization with some of the essays, There were a few times where I had a tough time following along because the story would jump to a completely different thing. The only other issue I had (and may be due to the uncorrected advanced e-copy I read) was the formatting. There was an essay in particular where it's writing from the perspective of her son; I could tell the story was jumping back and forth from his voice to hers but it was very challenging. By italicizing one or the other, I may have had an easier time following along. This small formatting comment can easily be cleaned up in final edits and it doesn't take away from the power of her writing.

Thank you to the University of Minnesota Press and NetGalley for this advanced copy... I will post this review on my Instagram page two weeks prior to its release and update this review with Links to those additional posts.

[Lauren Little · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very powerful collection of essays! Carolyn’s eight grade teacher Miss Johnson made a difference by making her feel cared about and emotionally supported which always stuck with her. These sentiments she carried into her life and used them to influence her decisions for SASE and to try to help her kids. She often mentions how hard it is to break the cycle of poverty if not given a chance, she marks her chance as George giving her a journal decades ago and numerous other helpers along the way. When she was born she had a “veil” or part of the membrane from the water bag covering her face. Which means a child with this is to have special powers and made her mother think she had given birth to a voodoo child. This book is a compilation of short essays she has lived throughout her life. One of the essays that stuck out to me is when she mentions her youngest daughter Ebony is 13 years old and calls to tell her mother sh was raped. Carolyn rushes out of work only to be told if she leaves early again today measures will be taken even after tell her boss what has happened. I found Carolyn’s essays heartbreaking, surprising, and very real. She had a life that many could relate to and instead of accepting her situations she always tried to rise above for her kids, her family, and her community. I am certain she touched many lives and still continues to do so. I had never read any short stories or true essays and would recommend her book to everyone it is a refreshing change of pace.

[Hayley (Shelflyfe) · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Would things improve for women... My hope was that they would find the courage within themselves that we women have always had: the courage to know and believe that we exist, we are here, we are powerful, we are strong; the strength to stand up to a world that would continue to try to keep them in the kitchen.'

I was approved to read this book/collection of essays through Netgalley.
I enjoyed reading this story which felt like a memoir of sorts from Carolyn Holbrook.
The depiction of her life, with all its setbacks, limitations, and the regular racist microaggressions she has been subject to were both eye opening and in some ways unsurprising. Yet at the same time the book was very hopeful.
I did feel that the start of the book with the mention of the apparition felt a bit different to the rest of this book. I would have liked to have known more about that particular story personally and the lineage and history there.
I did also like the many references and quotes through the book from other writers. They feel particularly relevant at the moment.

'We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty' - Maya Angelou.

This book also spoke to me from a feminist perspective and the additional limitations enforced on women, particularly black women and women of colour.
'What is it that will set us free?'

I would recommend this book, but probably wouldn't re-read again.

[Smriti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carolyn Holbrook is clearly a great storyteller and she’s lived a long enough life with a lot of stories to tell. From teenage pregnancies, living hand to mouth, lived through domestic abuse, seeing a son go to jail and just so much more, Carolyn Holbrook had a lot to add to the current dialogue about race and being black in the US.

It is interesting that Carolyn herself is from Minneapolis where George Floyd was murdered by the police and the Black Lives Matters protests have been taking place more than ever. Her essays date back to the 90s and her voice is just so important. Apart from being important, it’s also powerful. I like the way she wrote where she talks about one thing in the past and then effortlessly also interweaves another story or incident into it. There’s nothing meandering about it. You can see that it’s deliberate and it works. Not many can pull that off.

There’s a truth and honesty in the way that she’s written these essays. Almost felt like I was listening to a very eloquent friend talk about her life. I enjoyed my time reading this and would definitely recommend you picking it up as well.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest review.

[Sherry Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

TELL ME YOUR NAMES AND I WILL TESTIFY is author Carolyn Holbrook’s response to the ancestors who appear to her and tell her to tell their stories. Her journey to understand and to make the ancestors’ stories known is a long one, but every step of the way has led to the stories in TELL ME YOUR NAMES. Holbrook wants to and is able to testify because of her tenacity-a single mother of five who moves away from abuse and poverty due to her own determination to succeed. Her testimony rejects the single story. From typist to arts administrator to eventually the writer we all know and admire, we see how Carolyn, a determined Black woman, has responded to obstacles imposed by race, gender, and class. Carolyn mentors and motivates writers to tell their stories—especially writers of color. And we have and we are writing our stories; and, we mentor others, as Carolyn has mentored us. Carolyn, an elder who in her quiet, often subtle demeanor, demands justice for not only her children, but for all of us. —Sherry Quan Lee, author, Love Imagined a mixed race memoir, and And You Can Love Me a story for everyone who loves someone with ASD.

[Sukaina Majeed · Rating 5 out of 5]

The essays connect with you on a personal level and they also keep the private close to the public and its effects on Carolyn as a black woman and as a single black woman struggling with motherhood and poverty side by side. Carolyn brings to you the face of racism and the prejudices from a closer lens. You see poverty and survival in poverty through the lens of a black woman in the United States. Holbrook not only collects her personal experiences but also writes and analyses the double standards that have existed in the system for a long time. What Carolyn reminds as again and again which is noticeable in every essay of her is the magic or the power of storytelling that she experiences at different stages of her life and it was something she learned very early on and these essays compiled together is an eye opener and a reminder that the other side has also has been at fault and we need to start saving our voices just like Holbrook does about the black race and the social-economic affect on a home of a black woman.

[Hikma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for allowing me to have an advanced reading copy.

“Tell me your names and I will testify” is an essay that gives hope to everyone. Here, we witness the author’s life through her eyes and I found it powerful. Her writing is poignant and delicate at once. I requested it in Netgalley because I was intrigued by the title and I’m not disappointed. It was actually interesting and I really enjoyed the book. Plus the message behind is actually powerful! Here we have a determined Black woman, that faces obstacles imposed by the color of her skin, gender, and class to be where she is in order to give her children a better life.
Thank you Carolyn Holbrook for sharing the inspiring, heartbreaking lessons behind your story!

I recommend everyone to read this story, you won’t regret it! It’s going to be release on July 21st, 2020

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify is a memoir written in essay style by Carolyn Holbrook, not only did I absolutely love this book but it also helped me realize that this is my preferred memoir format however, I've never read one that I liked this much.

I was all-in immediately, Holbrook does such a great job of catching and maintaining your attention as well as your emotions. Hold on tight, because you will be experiencing a variety of feelings throughout this book. Carolyn tells her stories so well that you start to feel like you've known her for years and she's recounting parts of her life to you personally. The way she writes and tells stories is nothing short of magical. I cannot wait to read more from her.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this copy to review!

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carolyn Holbrook's _Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify_ is a collection of essays about her life as a writer and writing teacher/activist living in the Twin Cities. As a Black woman with five young children she is raising on her own, initially she believes that writing isn't _for_ her even though it is something she feels drawn to do. Each essay focuses on different aspects of her life, her involvement community writing projects that center young people, single mothers, and people of color. This book is inspiring in the examples she offers of what it takes to build a sense of community and how best to engage students and those who can most benefit from encouragement.

This book will appeal to those interested in writing via community outreach, writing, and women who are making a difference.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir/collection of essays by Holbrook speaks to her experiences and the influence of and on the arts. From her time as an incarcerated pregnant teen to her work as a prominent literacy advocate and instructor in Minneapolis, her essays capture the way she has evolved and grown throughout her life. The arts, and particularly writing, have always been important to her and she has devoted much of her life to connecting the arts to her community. She is an advocate, teacher, community member, mother, and grandmother that uses her personal experiences and challenges as a way to connect and serve others. I appreciated the skill she brought to these essays as well as her commitment to the arts.