Child: A Memoir

In 1944, Mattie Culp, a 26-year-old African American woman, left her own young daughter, Minnie, in her family’s care to work as a live-in maid and caregiver for a white couple and their three-year-old daughter, Judy, in Rock Hill, South Carolina. In Child, Judy Goldman tells the story of her relationship with Mattie, reflecting on the deep love that grew up around the unconscionable scaffolding of segregation and racism.Now 80, Goldman reflects on her privileged life as a white Jewish child in the Jim Crow south; the sacrifices Mattie endured to earn an income that would put Minnie through college; how a relationship can evolve in and out of step with a changing world; and the role these memories play in her life today. In Child, a soul-searching Goldman asks whether we can ever tell the whole truth, even to ourselves.