Sweet Summer: Growing Up With and Without My Dad

"Potent … Unforgettable."
—Bharati Mukherjee
The New York Times Book Review

"A REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENT … . While Sweet Summer is infused with experiences unique to African-American culture, it speaks to the universals of human experience."
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Written with the narrative force of fiction and the lyrical motion of poetry, SWEET SUMMER is Bebe Moore Campbell’s elegy to her extraordinary father. Though she lived with her devoted mother and grandmother in the North most of the year, Campbell spent the summers with her father in the South—a man of gargantuan appetites and boundless exuberance. To his daughter, he was a magical presence.
A bittersweet evocation of a divided childhood with its family secrets, surprising discoveries, loneliness, and love, SWEET SUMMER also recalls living on the cusp of the social revolution of the 1960s. Most of all, it is an achingly honest and beautiful reminder of the universal challenge of growing up and facing one’s parents as an adult.
"Touching… With this candid account and loving tribute to a special man, Campbell breaks through all the stereotypes about black family life."
—New York Daily News