If the Creek Don't Rise [Paperback]

When Rita Williams was four, her mother died in a Denver boarding house. This death delivered Rita into the care of her aunt Daisy, a headstrong woman who had married the most prominent black landowner in Nebraska and spirited her sharecropping family out of the lynching South. They reinvented themselves as ranch hands and hunting guides out West. But one by one they slipped away, to death or to an easier existence elsewhere, leaving Rita as Daisys last hope to right the racial wrongs of the past and to make good on a lifetime of thwarted ambition.

If the Creek Dont Rise tells how Rita found her way out from under this crippling legacy and, instead of becoming a perfect credit to her race, discovered how to become herself. Set amid the harsh splendor of the Colorado Rockies, this is a gorgeous, ruthless, and unique account of the lies families liveand the moments of truth and beauty that save us.

PRAISE FOR IF THE CREEK DONT RISE

A remarkable memoir . . . Every page allows me to live in her thoughts. OPRAH WINFREY, O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

It takes a while to recover from this book, which is the most important tribute I can pay it. LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW

­Playback
 
Out my kitchen window,the November wind off the Pacific whipped up light frothy waves on Silver Lake. The oddly beautiful smog­-­seasoned light burnished the last of the lemons, making them look sweeter than they were. I was just spritzing juice on a bowl of raspberries when my cat, Banana Sanchez, cool from her dalliance in the garden, settled to warm herself on the answering machine downstairs. The playback button engaged. I heard a familiar gravid throat clearing, a deep breath and a ­sigh.
 
           Rita? This is Rose. A pause, as if waiting to see if Id pick up. I didnt. All right, here it is. Daisy called Mary and Mary callels#