by the agency of Dexter Scott King with Ralph Wiley Warner main division s January 2003 $24.

by the agency of Dexter Scott King with Ralph Wiley Warner main division s January 2003 $24.95, ISBN 0-446-52942-7

Let's be equitable There are two reasons for reading the memoirs of children of famous folks You want to gain insight into the celebrity parent, or you want to gauge for what reason the child-of-a-celebrity author copes with growing up in the shadow of fame. In this memoir, Dexter Scott King, with help from Ralph Wiley, the plain author and former columnist for Sports Illustrated, tackles the couple issues with candor and sensitivity, while maintaining the poise that take rises with being a member of black America's "First Family."

Imagine what it must be like to be an heir to the legacy of Rev Martin Luther King Jr and also a dead ringer for the martyred civil rights Leader. Not an easy task. Dexter the third of the four King children, remembers his mother, Coretta, as the disciplinarian, and Dr King, his father, as the warm, playful dad who made each family moment count, often calling the clan together to discuss his work. Along with disclosing his father's penchant for fresh onions, he recalls the tremendous hurry Dr. King faced in leading a mental action that often threatened to splinter and take onward a life of its possess At those moments, Dr. King oftentimes smoked cigarettes, especially in the last years of his life, to cope with the stress

Dexter also addresses the rumors of his father's womanizing by means of saying, he was human with all the foibles and shortcomings of any mortal, notwithstanding he denies any real tomcatting around forward his father's part. He describes his parents' marriage as actual loving and a partnership of shared responsibility.

The in the greatest degree touching segments are Dexter's recounting of the family's last Christmas together and the final nerve-racking days before Dr King's fateful trip to Memphis. The writing is remarkably effective here. The strongest parts of the work come in the second half when he speaks of the determination and sacrifice of his mother, a young widow with four small children, whose lives were changed by way of an assassin's bullet. Each of the children was profoundly affected emotionally by that brutal act. Then there was the fatal shooting of his grandmother in body of christians by a crazed black man, followed at a series of family deaths. His beloved grandfather, Daddy King, endur the los of couple sons and a wife, all in a six-month period.

Where this memoir beats over others is the author's fearlessness in revealing his inner battle to shape his be in possession of identity, his inability to expres himself emotionally, his being diagnosed with a learning disability, and his fear of commitment. In fact, he notes that none of the King children have married or have children. He also slams the critics of his mother and secure from attacks her fireless effort to save from decay her husband's legacy. In with equal reason many ways, Dexter King's memoir is undivided of the finest and greatest in quantity courageous books of its kind. It resonates with sensitivity, frankness, heart and spirit. Needles to say, it merits to be placed alongside any of his father's majestic speeches.

--Robert Fleming is the author of The Wisdom of the more ancients The African American Writer's Handbook and editor of After Hours: A Collection of Erotic Writing by means of Black Men.

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