Book review: 'The Grace of Silence: A Memoir' by Michele Norris
An NPR reporter offers up family secrets as a testimony to
racism's power and reach.  Michele Norris  NPR's Michele Norris.
(Jason Miccolo / September 27, 2010)  I wish NPR reporter
Michele Norris hadn't called "The Grace of Silence," her tribute
to her parents, a "memoir." The book is, at once, much less and
much more.   But there are gaps in Norris' history that cannot
be filled. Her father has been dead for more than 20 years, and
Norris is too respectful to push her headstrong mother for the
explanations and details she needs. Her own honesty is the
book's saving grace, as she puzzles through the tangled
landscape of race: "Here is the conundrum of racism," she
declares. "You know it's there, but you can't prove, beyond a
reasonable doubt, how it colors a particular situation."  Norris
is familiar to NPR listeners for her soothing voice and smooth
rapport on "All Things Considered." A former writer for the Los
Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune