In her new book of memoiristic essays, "Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify," Twin Cities writer and arts activist Carolyn Holbrook opens with a visit from a ghost.
The spirit is a tall, stately Black woman wearing an expensive Victorian dress. Although Holbrook was nervous, she knew the ghost was an ancestor because this wasn't the first ghost to visit.
"My name is Liza," the ghost said. "You have to tell our stories."
As she unravels her own journey, Holbrook shows how she went from being a pregnant 16-year-old girl imprisoned in the Minnesota juvenile justice system to an award-winning teacher and celebrated writer.
During a time when this country seems to be in the midst of a historic reckoning, Holbrook's story should be read as more than a memoir. She sets out to personalize and underscore the resilience that goes into surviving and thriving without resources.
Holbrook's ghosts don't haunt her, but those who made narrow, stereotypical assumptions about a Black single mother of five still do.
She recalls the slights and humiliations she endured, even as she was attempting to get established in the literary world: She describes, for example, the excitement her family felt when she won a leadership award. She departed the event to prepare a celebratory dinner with her children, but her excitement was dashed when an angry cashier announced how surprised she was to know that people on food stamps could buy steaks.
"I was so shocked that I couldn't speak," Holbrook writes. "She of course had no idea why I was using food stamps. I could have been shopping for someone whose medical condition required a high-protein diet. And she obviously had no idea that most mothers who receive welfare checks and food stamps are not the mythical 'welfare queens' that Ronald Reagan painted low-income single mothers to be."
