GROWING UP NIGGER RICH
By Gwendoline Y. Fortune

An intricately crafted novel of homecoming and the South.

Born to a family of relative privilege, Gayla Tyner is everything that defines the "upper class." She grew up as a daughter of medical professionals, possessors of education and property. In protected places, she was special, a young woman of poise and intellect. In other places, she found she was "just a nigger," an African-American female who was viewed as one who put on airs, the subject of envy and ostracism: she was "nigger rich." As an adult, Gayla is haunted by the South, what it means, has meant, and what is becoming. A professor at a major university in Michigan, the daughter of a prominent M.D., a dutiful wife and mother, she seems to have everything going for her. Memories of her past haunt her as she struggles to find her place as professor, mother, wife, and daughter. Nothing is as simple as black and white.

Selections from Growing Up Nigger Rich placed in the top twelve entries of the annual Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society competition and second place in the National Black Writers' Conference Awards.

View Chapter 1 (in PDF format)