Child

"Child is brave and lyrically told, a hymn of praise to a woman Goldman adored."—Charlotte Observer

"[Goldman] looks back on her life with a discerning eye that is able to appraise the dichotomy of her Southern upbringing. This act of remembering and then re-seeing brings a whiplash of honest realizations to the memoir's pages. ... Child shows that truth—at least truth of a sort—can be found."—SouthPark

"A gently told memoir of a cherished woman."—Kirkus

"A rich memoir that is long overdue, Child examines a Jewish child's loving relationship with a Black woman in the segregated South."—Foreword Reviews

"[A] fascinating memoir..."—The Charlotte Jewish News

"This moving memoir of a Black woman's importance in a white family reminds me that behind, under, and above the racial divide in the South, there ran strong currents of abiding love and mutual protection. These currents Judy Goldman excels at exploring without illusion and with full humanity. What a brave and timely book."—Frances Mayes, New York Times bestselling author of Under Magnolia and Under the Tuscan Sun

"Steeped in vivid, evocative memories of her southern childhood, Goldman's moving memoir "re-inhabits" and "interprets" the past: a white child growing up in a Black woman's care. It's a brave undertaking to explore the complexities of that time and place, but Goldman's wise, clear-eyed recognition of truth moves the memories into a new place."—Jill McCorkle, New York Times bestselling author of Hieroglyphics

"With mesmerizing detail and remarkable acuity, with a storyteller's ear and a poet's precision, Judy Goldman conveys, in Child, the profound goodness that shaped her, the antinomies that haunt her, and the mysteries that exert themselves even within the gilded frame of love."—Beth Kephart, National Book Award finalist and author of Wife Daughter Self: A Memoir in Essays and We Are the Words: The Master Memoir Class

"Child is as profound a memoir as I've ever read. In one gorgeously rendered scene after another, Goldman illuminates the paradoxes of a loving childhood built on "unconscionable scaffolding." To read this riveting book is to learn how to hold the finest detail up to the light, how to examine all memory."—Abigail DeWitt, author of News of Our Loved Ones

"Judy Goldman cuts through the mist of memory to find a deeper truth in her relationship with her family's longtime housekeeper, Mattie. It's a story about love, family, privilege and prejudice, seen through the eyes of innocence and the eyes of experience. What a stunning feat."—Tommy Tomlinson, author of The Elephant in the Room

"South-turned-North Carolinian Judy Goldman has essentially mastered the art of the memoir. This book unpacks a common Southern experience (that I won't give away here) with such poise and grace. It's also up for the Southern book award for nonfiction! Just read it and, if you like to, check out her other books."—Zoe Yarborough, StyleBlueprint

"[An] honest look at a complicated and important relationship. . . . That sense of investigation between writer and reader makes Child a remarkable achievement."—North Carolina Literary Review