Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Triumph by Sheila Johnson (A Book Review)

Sheila Johnson overcame immeasurable odds. When she was just sixteen, her family imploded when her father left their family for another woman. It destroyed her mom. Defiantly determined she would not be caught in this predicament as a woman, she set out to prove just that. However, this singular event shaped Sheila in more ways than one.  

Music was her refuge. She became an accomplished violinist and managed to get a full scholarship to college. She was well on her way. Then she met a young, ambitious man named Bob Johnson in college. They began dating and married a few years later. Her life and self-esteem was being shaped and molded by her new husband. His drive and ambition had carried them to great heights professionally.

However, behind closed doors, their marriage became a toxic breeding ground of lies, deceit, and emotional abuse. She had come full circle to the moment of her youth that she was determined not to experience again. When her thirty-three-year marriage to Bob ended, Sheila was struggling to find herself and rebuild life on her own terms.

She walked through shame, humiliation, male chauvinism, and racism to find her sweet spot. She became a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and formidable businesswoman. Sheila has indeed walked through fire and triumphantly come out on the other side.

I am grateful to Sheila Johnson for sharing her story. It is a story of courage, redemption, and fierce determination to keep moving forward.

Impactful moments/quotes from the book:

Sheila was reading in her bunk bed and was climbing down the ladder to come down for dinner.

Sheila’s dad to Sheila: “Just jump, I’ll catch you,” Dad said stretching his arm toward me. He’d never suggested such a thing before, so I was excited. I threw myself off the bunk, grinning from ear to ear-and then smack! I hit the floor hard. Confused, with the wind knocked out of me, I looked up at him.

“That’s a lesson,” my father said. “Don’t trust anybody.”

I started crying. “I trusted you,” I said. But he just turned and walked out of the room.

Sheila: “I wouldn’t want to live through that pain again. But the truth is, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if I hadn’t gone through it. I walked through fire and survived. I am the salamander.”

Sheila: “My journey here has been arduous, as you’ve read in these pages. But going through those awful times built my character and my strength.”

Rating 10/10

Andre 3000’s New Blue Sun

3 Stacks released a new album after quite some time on Friday 11/17/23. Many people aren’t here for it to say the least. Black Twitter especially is eating this alive. I really don’t want to laugh but some of these comments are laugh out loud funny. Many die hard Outkast fans are vicious with the comments. All laughs aside though, I don’t share the same sentiments. First off, music is near and dear to my heart. My musical tastes span far and wide, always have. I listen to many genres, it just depends on what I’m feeling in the moment. On any given day, I can listen to classical, jazz, ambient or space music, and back around again to gospel, zydeco, and southern soul. You get the picture.

What Andre 3000 put out in the world with this album is both new and not so new. Musicians and artists in general have done what he is doing with this album for eons and centuries; experimenting, exploring, and embracing where they are in their art’s and life’s journey. This is a time stamp in his life, I’m sure, and he chose to contribute it to the world. It’s the beginning of something and even more so, the evolution of something much bigger.

It’s avant-garde and frankly ahead of its time for a “hip hop” artist. Art is expansive, free. It is not intended to be held, stifled, or caged in a box. Blue New Sun is the epitome of the very thing art is meant to be. So many artists before him have traveled this very road, Dizzy Gillespie, Lonnie Liston Smith, Miles Davis, Earth Wind & Fire, Jimi Hendrix, and George Clinton and Parliament and that’s just a few. All have branched out of their respective boxes to bring us all sheer ecstasy in music. True music lovers and the world at large are the better for it.

Our taste in art and music is subjective, yes. Everyone is entitled to their preferences and tastes. Not everything is for everybody. But when artists chooses to walk in the freedom of being authentic and have the bravery to deliver it to the universe, those who it’s meant to touch, it’ll touch. More importantly, the contribution will be magical and simply a blessing to the world at large.

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow(A Book Review)

Escaping the shattered home life she shared with her parents, ten-year old Joan relocates to Memphis with her younger sister, Mya and their mother, Miriam. Memphis is quite the experience and wide-eyed, Joan takes it all in, this magical, colorful place.

When they all arrive in Miriam’s childhood home, a home built by love, Joan feels the weight of a thing in this very safe haven they’ve escaped to. Her artwork is her balm for the powerful weight she’s carrying from years ago.

Joan melts into the fabric of her community, which includes people like her sassy aunt August and the ever present elders Miss Dawn and Miss Jade. She is surrounded by love, secrets, and wisdom. It ushers her into an understanding of both her family’s past and her own identity and purpose.

I absolutely loved reading this story. I especially appreciated the lyrical language the author used. It was a well written and poignant story about fierce women and their life choices and journeys. It was a refreshing experience to be overtaken by such a rich story.

Rating: 10/10

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray (A Book Review)

Belle de Costa Greene is a formidable collector in the art world. As the personal librarian to Mr. J.P. Morgan, she is entrusted to secure art for one of the most powerful financiers in America. However, there is more to Belle than meets the eye. She is not all she appears to be.

Belle was born Belle Marion Greener, the daughter of a prominent Black professor and civil rights activist. With growing racial tensions developing in the nation, her mother made a fateful decision that the entire family was to pass for white. This destroyed the family as Belle knew it. Belle’s father leaves the family because he did not agree with his wife’s decision. He continued to live the rest of his days as a Black man, while Belle, her mother, and her siblings passes for white.

Belle hides in plain sight by being somewhat of a socialite while acquiring art for Mr. Morgan. While researching and mingling in social circles to acquire art for the library, she is unapologetic in her approach. She accepts the advances of a fellow art enthusiast, Bernard Berenson. Berenson is in an unconventional marriage with his wife, and due to his accepted dalliances outside of his marriage, he and Belle engage in an affair. She falls in love with him. However, as time moves forward, Belle discovers many things that alters her view of him in a tainted way. She reluctantly accepts the truth and is forever changed in matters of the heart.

When Mr. Morgan dies, Belle briefly struggles to see her purpose in the world. The family chooses to keep her on as the personal librarian for the library. She continues building on Mr. Morgan’s legacy by acquiring art for the library. She uses the skill she honed in her profession to also govern other areas of her life and lives her life on her own terms. The story flowed at a natural pace, which kept me interested. I enjoyed the various layers unfolding in Belle’s life. The authors fleshed Belle out nicely.

Rating 7/10