Teddy's Child

Historian and biographer Virginia Hamilton explores the deep roots of family and place in her coming-of-age memoir set in Birmingham, Alabama, in the period between World Wars I and II. Born into a family of journalists and writers, she lived a life charmed with books, interesting people, good schools, and travel. Yet there were shadows of both the genteel poverty her family fell into during the Great Depression and of mental depression and what were then called nervous disorders. As a historian, Hamilton has long been admired for her prose style and the vigor of her research. Here she brings her talents to the chronicle of her own lineage and her discoveries of the commonalities that transcend generations. Supplemented by images of family memorabilia, Teddy's Child reveals the complex structures of race, class, and gender in a Deep South city during the 1920s and 1930s.