Super Short Summary

James McBride's nonfiction autobiography The Color of Water chronicles his challenges growing up in the 1960s and 1970s as a child with a white Jewish mother and Black father. Interspersed with his recollections are interview transcripts describing his mother's abusive upbringing as an Orthodox Jewish woman living in the Jim Crow South. The book depicts racism, discussions of racially motivated violence, racial slurs, domestic violence and abuse, and the recurring sexual assault of a minor.