Black. Single. Mother. - by Jamilah LeMieux (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews, by a celebrated cultural critic.

Through her signature candid, humorous, and sometimes biting takes, Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a "baby mama" hating world. With a particular verve and relatability-- honed, in part, from her many years among Black Twitter's most prominent voices--Lemieux centers the complex reality of Black single motherhood: uncertainty and fierceness, alike. Black. Single. Mother. combines riveting personal essays infused with whip-smart cultural and historical analysis, along with twenty-one intimate, first-person testimonies from a spectrum of Black single mothers. A long overdue offering in celebration of the American matriarch most often maligned, Black. Single. Mother. sets out to inspire a new cultural and community dialogue about this powerful figure as one profoundly deserving of great love, support and respect.

Review Quotes

"[Black. Single. Mother.] is funny and beautiful and insightful and sentimental and sharp and soft and will teach you things. . . . If you're the kind of person who reads books or . . . has a mother, you'll love this book."--Michael Harriot, New York Times bestselling author of Black AF History

"Here we experience Jamilah Lemieux at the height of her power, making proclamations as precise as poetry. I knew it would be beyond incredible. I did not know Lemieux would make us reconsider everything that has ever been uttered, read, and made about the nation and women who are Black and single. We will understand freedom differently after experiencing this book."--Kiese Laymon

"It's about time someone held a lighter to the sky for Black single moms. This book is incisive, endearing, and laugh-out-loud funny at the same damn time."--Brittney Cooper

"What makes Lemieux such a significant and virtuosic public intellectual is her distinct synthesis of the academic with the real. She fuses genius-level theory and a woman-inspired racial politic with a bravery to reveal and conjure entire curricula from the dirt. Y'all should be scared of her."--Damon Young

"Jamilah Lemieux is a fearless and brilliant writer and thinker, and an indispensable voice in today's cultural climate. Whatever she writes, put it in your brain, agree or disagree--you'll be smarter. I promise."--Van Lathan

"The story of the single Black mother is long overdue for expansion, and Jamilah Lemieux is the writer to do it. She brings depth, humor, and humanity to one of the most defining roles in our communities. This is a book for single mothers, for those raised by them, and for anyone ready to see this narrative in full color."--Tiffany D. Cross

"Without exaggeration, Lemieux has produced one of the most important books of this young century. She has also cemented her reputation as one of the most important voices of our generation."--Marc Lamont Hill

"Black. Single. Mother. is an incredibly personal, deeply honest look at the complexities of Black single motherhood. It is, at its heart, a courageous love letter to Black single mothers and the children they've raised. Through Lemieux's heartwarming and complicated lived experiences and those of other Black single mothers, we are forced to examine our historical hostility toward Black single mothers and redefine how we see family."--Jemele Hill

"As a single mother, I felt an immediate connection to Jamilah Lemieux's outstanding debut. Each chapter reveals the brilliance, resilience, and creativity that Black mothers bring to raising children while navigating systems never designed for them. This book reminds us that motherhood is not defined not by who is absent but by the abundant love, resourcefulness, and community that show up again and again. It's a tender, unflinching portrait of motherhood that deserves to be widely read."--Glory Edim, author of Well-Read Black Girl and Gather Me

About the Author

Jamilah Lemieux is a cultural critic and writer with a focus on issues of race, gender, and sexuality. A leading feminist thinker, social influencer, and millennial media darling, Lemieux has written for a host of platforms, including the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Essence, Playboy, The Cut, The Guardian, Colorlines, The Washington Post, Wired, Self, Refinery29, and Vanity Fair. She was prominently featured in Lifetime's docuseries Surviving R. Kelly and Surviving R. Kelly 2: The Reckoning. She also appeared in A&E's Secrets of Playboy. Lemieux penned the foreword for the anniversary editions of Michele Wallace's Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman and Ann Petry's Miss Muriel and Other Stories and was featured in the anthology How We Fight White Supremacy. Currently, she writes a weekly advice column for Slate's "Care and Feeding" parenting section and dabbles in stand-up comedy. She resides in Los Angeles with her daughter Naima.