The Time and Place That Gave Me Life

Janet Cheatham Bell’s riveting memoir recounts her experiences coming of age as an African American girl in Indianapolis during the 1930s to the mid-1960s. In taut chapters, Bell introduces the reader to a life defined largely by race and racial discrimination. She begins with her birth in 1937 and her parents’ early struggles after relocating to Indianapolis from Tennessee. Bell describes her first job as a maid in a wealthy white household and her humiliating experiences at a white high school. She describes experiences of racism at Indiana University and how she copes with personal tragedy that she is able to overcome. Devoid of hyperbole or the trauma that defines so many memoirs, particularly those of celebrities, the strength and appeal of Bell’s memoir lies in her direct, but personal tone, and her deft use of anecdotes. I think of myself as ordinary, writes Bell, but the lives of ordinary people are not identical, and the details of those lives are worth knowing.