Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir

by Jake Lamar

A stunning memoir of a gifted young middle-class black man and his struggle to succeed in white America. Born in 1961, Jake Lamar was unable to escape a heritage of racism despite being well-educated and accomplished. Here Lamar, a former associate editor for Time magazine, illuminates the ironies of integration and America's history of prejudice.

Genres: Memoir, Autobiography

174 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1991

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jake Lamar has an infectious smile, a way with words, and a million creative ideas. That's what I felt when I met him earlier this year in a little Paris café. Through my work at Africa Regional Services, an office of the State Department based in Paris, we'd been trying to recruit Jake to travel to Africa to do programming through our U.S. Embassies.

Meeting Jake, and finding him so interesting, I decided I'd better learn his work. What better way to start than with his first book, "Bourgeois Blues: An American Memoir." Jake's book takes us back to his early childhood years, and makes the mom in me wish that I could have thrown my arms around that kid and held him tight when he was intimidated by so many of those around him. It also rekindled my own uncertainties about how we white people treat those around us who are not white, but not just that, also how we treat people of different social and economic standing, the disabled, and the list could go on and on.

As a white woman who loves Africa and wants to keep working on African issues and learning more about the continent in all its diversity; and as someone who grew up in a fairly homogenous town, with even more homogenous roots, I've often grappled with the same issues that Jake brings up, but that he, naturally, approaches from a different perspective.

I felt that a lot of the tension from these unanswered questions was aptly illustrated in this excerpt of a conversation between Jake and his white ex-girlfriend. "Kate started talking about her new boyfriend. He was someone she'd gone out with years earlier, and after being reunited for several months they were getting serious. She told me about taking Jim to a beach she and I used to visit. 'We were looking for a good spot,' Kate said, 'and I kept thinking, Something's different here, something's weird. Like there was some aspect of being at the beach that seemed... I don't know... absent. Then I realized what it was: Nobody was staring at us.'

I laughed. 'That must have been a relief.'
'Actually, I kind of missed it.'"

Race is complicated, a fraught issue that is so sensitive and pushes people's buttons so quickly that we're usually afraid to talk about it. But recent events make a little self-examination even more necessary, and I'm grateful to Jake Lamar for giving me an interesting story as a context from which to launch further introspection.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Summalysis'

Bourgeois Blues is an autobiography by Jake Lamar, an American-born author and former journalist, who moved to France in 1993 (a few years after this book was published). In Blues, Jake examines his life as a middle and upper middle class Black male, growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. While he includes various examples and analyses of racism and class issues, they tend to take a back seat to the relationship between Jake and his father.

The first half of the book focuses on the background of Jake's father and grandparents, along with his challenging times at home and education at prestigious schools -- from minority-filled prep schools to Harvard.

Jake's father, 'Billy', is an amazing character who plays a tremendous role in his life throughout the book. His father grew up very poor in a tiny southern US community, in the heart of racist ideals and segregation, and -- against all odds -- he escaped. He was raised by an excellent mother, he was abnormally intelligent, abnormally motivated to succeed, and he brought a fiery passion to bare on all those around him. 'Billy' became a businessman, a teacher, a consultant, he made money, went bankrupt, made a fortune, invested -- all the while challenging racial stereotypes and fighting against a system that didn't want him to win by playing the white man's game. He was a confident, determined and caring man, who worked his butt off to succeed and to see to the welfare and future of his children, especially Jake.

But Billy also had a dark side, and he and his family paid a heavy price for his successes and failures. Due to the incredible challenges he had to overcome, poverty, a father who left and never came back, the constant wall of racism and antagonism and other factors: Billy became an incredibly selfish, egotistical, stubborn man, prone to fits of violent rage and endless egocentric projection. He cheated on his wife, beat her, threatened her and his children, became an alcoholic, disappeared for days at a time without an explanation and more. As Jake relates on page 93:

"My father's home was a totalitarian state. Lying in my bed, staring into the darkness, unable to sleep, I found this idea so obvious, I could hardly believe it hadn't occurred to me before. Dad was the great dictator, demanding unthinking loyalty and obedience from his subjects. In the past, the most minor signs of rebellion or independence of thought were violently crushed. After the terror, Dad would play the benevolent fascist, making kindly gestures, rewarding our submission with money or presents. When Dad had had enough of a subject -- his wife, say -- that person was disappeared, then purged from history as if she never existed. Dad was his own minister of propaganda, telling you exactly what you were supposed to think of him. And I had been his silent collaborator, too frightened to speak up, cowed and cajoled into doing what was expected of me."

Jake's mother was a thin, frequently-sick, hardworking woman who put up with her husband's BS for many years. She was a shy, devoted Catholic contrasted with Billy's in-your-face Atheism. Jake, in trying to explain why they ever got together in the first place, concocts a finely cynical theory on marriage (pages 26-27):

"Even as a child I had to wonder what it was that brought them together. Maybe it was that they somehow fit into each other's plans. Maybe you grow up nursing a tangle of vague notions about what you want to do or what you are meant to do or what others tell you you are supposed to do and this mishmash coalesces into a sort of life's scheme. Over the years you are tossed and buffeted by chance happenings, accidental encounters, the whims of people who hold some measure of control over your life and your own ephemeral impulses and incessant yearnings and you struggle to give some sort of shape and coherence to experience, to find evidence that between fate or God or dumb luck, and that sketchy game plan in your mind, you have been set on some correct, inevitable course. And maybe the day arrives when you think you should be married, that now is the time. Suddenly someone who blundered haphazardly into your world becomes an agent of destiny. You realize -- perhaps with the force of epiphany, more likely with the deceptive clarity of deliberate calculation -- that this is the one. You see how so many of this person's qualities correspond with your life's plan. Those that do not, you try to force into conformity with your design; or you ignore them altogether, seeing only what you wish to see, for as long as you possibly can. You tell yourself this is the right person. You know this is the right person. Well, at least you have a pretty good hunch. "I guess," my mother once said to me, searching for a rationale, "I was in love with your daddy."

While Jake Lamar is most focused on the relationship between a father and son who happen to be Black Americans, he also, inevitably and importantly, fills Bourgeois Blues with light commentary and life experiences involving racism and class structure. For example, Jake dated a number of white women over the years, and with one in particular, he remembers getting countless shocked looks from passersby on outings together, from people of all races and genders, and countless looks of disgust, primarily from black women (page 156). He also occasionally had trouble dealing with racist white parents, even Liberals whose left-wing values easily broke under pressure, as in this example on page 115:

"I knew Deborah's family fairly well. She once told me that her father, a successful lawyer, had been particularly fond of me. That was before I started going out with his daughter. When he learned of our relationship, he was angrier than Deborah had ever seen him. Her mother took a more pragmatic tack: "Just don't marry him," she said...This was the closet bigot's last stand: Yes, you can move into my neighborhood, you can attend my schools, you can run my local government; but you cannot touch my children, you cannot mix your blood with mine -- this is where integration ends."

The second half of Bourgeois Blues is a bit disjointed. Lamar begins with a look at day-to-day life working for the right-of-centre Time magazine, and continues analyzing the characters there, including dealing with a particularly racist colleague. He also struggles with writing half-truth, biased pieces on Black culture which he is ashamed of. Interestingly-enough however, despite being somewhat of a 'Token Black' at Time, and despite overt conservative values and racist leanings from the higher ups at the magazine, his general relations with staff seemed to be fairly egalitarian, considering the times. For example, after some initial generalizing (that Jake, because he's Black, must be from the Detroit or Chicago offices of Time) an editor Lamar nicknames 'Minuteman' is most concerned with the fact that Jake is a graduate of Harvard, setting him in a certain clique among the well-educated staff (page 121). Cliques, and class, seem to play a greater role than racism in many aspects of Jake's life, which shows the power of money, and highlights the difference in privilege that wealth and education could, and can bring for anyone in America. Of course, racism is still there in Bourgeois Blues and in 1980s America and the culture of fear and haves and have-nots. It seems that, if you were Black and relatively-privileged, especially if you dressed or tried to talk 'white', you would probably be tolerated and even liked by many whites. But if they didn't know you and saw you on the street, as happened often with Jake's friend Roy (page 131), a fearful, racist image was likely to dominate the White mind.

Jake himself seemed to identify most strongly as an 'American' in the 80s. He hated the way the term 'American' was appropriated by Regan and right-wingers to mean some sort of macho White ultra-patriotism, and he felt no direct connection with Africa, having come from a background of Cherokee Indian and slaves who had arrived hundreds of years ago -- long before many White ancestors had come to America (page 135).

Jake rounds off the book with a look back at why one of his most important sexual relationships failed (page 154), trying to decide if it was more that he was afraid of marriage, commitment, and turning into his father, or more afraid of marrying a White woman, and, finally, a reconciliation of sorts with his estranged father and a coming to terms with his childhood. I suppose, truly finally, he ends the book with a somewhat corny foreshadowing/plug of his forthcoming authorial career.


Verdict

I found that Bourgeois Blues didn't delve deeply enough into some issues I would have liked to have seen explored more -- though Lamar certainly did not have to do this -- and I wanted to hear a bit more about the gaps in Lamar's stories. The jump to Time magazine was a bit uneven, as was the quality of writing overall, and I found Jake relied a bit too much on second-hand stories from friends to illustrate examples of racism; they felt a bit tacked-on and gave his own experience with racism further lightness which may or may not be the truth.

That said, I really enjoyed the thunderous, dominant force that was Billy, Jake's father. He provides for a fascinating real-life character study, and a telling mishmash of countervailing forces of love and hatred, also complicated far beyond the black and white dichotomy, pun intended. I loved the history of Jake's parents and grandparents, and I loved Jake's thoughts on relationships and the stories of his experiences at school, at work, and out in the world. Lastly, I loved how Jake is a solitary walker, strolling around New York. I find that says something about a person, often involving deep thought, reflection, consideration, and hints of wisdom. It was fascinating to read about the life of a man who grew up Black, in a most likely more racist (against Blacks) time and place than my own youth had for me. And it was fascinating to read about a man who had an incredibly difficult father and upbringing -- yet who also had access to advantages I did not, including exclusive schools and upper middle class wealth and luxuries.

True Rating: 3.7 Stars

[Linda Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jake is an excellent writer. The accounts of
his relationship with his father were painful to read. It was courageous of him to be so honest about the brutality of the situation. But I bet in doing so a lot of people could relate to the story. Now I’m eager to read more of his books.

[Kurt Brindley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir by Jake Lamar, a Harvard graduate and former writer for Time magazine, compares with Barack Obama’s memoir Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance in that both provide insight into what it is like growing up as a black male in America and both illustrate how their relationships with their fathers impacted and informed their lives. Unlike Obama’s memoir, however, Lamar’s is not as personally revealing or as deeply and lucidly written. Compared to Obama’s, Lamar’s seems more a primer on the subject rather than a comprehensive discourse. Still a good read, nonetheless, especially if you are looking for something quick yet informative on the subject.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short, well-written account of growing up in NYC as a middle-class black man, this memoir brings a personal perspective on issues like integration, affirmative action, and interracial couples. Also, the way he described unhappy moments between him and his father illustrated the reflection that went into his writing. There were a few moments and insights that made me stop and really think about a new idea or perspective, so I'm glad I picked it up.