When I looked at the cover and subtitle, I figured this book would informative, historical, and sociological. But this slice of personal, social, and racial history is a 3-D literary roller coaster ride! What an enjoyable experience it was to read a book comprised of hundreds of personal, family, historical, and news stories, tracking the impact of post-slavery America on 3 generations of a (striving to remain) upper-middle class family in Harlem. Revealed is a traumatic and precarious world filled with love and sacrifice, trauma, death and dysfunction, perseverance, social connections, and good and bad fortune, all combined with a delicious, elaborate and humorous writing style! It’s hard to imagine that today’s students who didn’t live through the '50s, '60s or '70s will be quite as riveted by this book (as I was) but they will learn about black history, the Urban League, the major players like Haynes, DuBois, Booker T Washington, MLK, Malcolm X, how the Black Muslim movement started, the economic ups and downs of Harlem, several political eras, the mental health and religious worlds, the drug world up close and personal, urban reality, and more. Readers will experience a handful of very emotional experiences of various real people. Remarkably, this book reads like fiction yet it is about real people whose unique day to day, decade, and lifetime challenges are at once heartbreaking and heroic. A must read!!!