NOSE IN A BOOK club

There is a saying among Southern blacks that goes like this: White folks up North don’t care how high you get as long as you don’t get too close; white folks down South don’t care how close you get as long as you don’t get too high. In “Slaves in the Family,” Edward Ball reveals just how intimate the relationship between Southern whites and blacks can get. In this epic family history, he shows how the “peculiar institution” of the past has linked the progeny of slaves and slave holders through time and blood and memory.  [www.salon.com; by Maryanne Volers]