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That Mean Old Yesterday
by Stacey Ration
Atria Books
Reviewed by Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Ph.D.
Stacey Patton is one of the most engaging and powerful African-American voices to rise from the contemporary literary scene in recent years. Her autobiography That Mean Old Yesterday, is part memoir, part history lesson, and part social commentary that is guaranteed to keep your eyes sliding, your mind burning, and your heart exploding with anger and hope.
That Mean Old Yesterday is reminiscent of Finding Fish, more famously known in its theatric format as "Antwone Fisher." Like Fisher, Patton was given up by her mother as an infant and was raised by foster parents. At the age of five, she is taken to live with a new couple, known only to the reader as Myrtle and George, who change the course of her young life for the worse. Myrtle subjects young Stacey to seemingly daily rampages of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, all while her passive adoptive father stands idly by as a tangential and silent witness to her torture. Ration's story is a first-hand account of...