First published 2023
Michelle Miller built a successful career as a CBS News correspondent, but she carried a painful secret. Her mother had abandoned her at birth in 1967 Los Angeles. Miller grew up knowing only her father, Dr. Ross Miller, a Black trauma surgeon and Compton city councilman, and her paternal grandmother. Her mother remained a mystery, a Chicana hospital administrator who had hidden her affair and pregnancy. When Miller was twenty-two, her dying father gave her a final directive: find your mother. Miller embarked on a decades-long search to connect with the woman who gave birth to her. She navigated predominantly white schools and newsrooms while questioning her mixed-race identity and place in America. Her reporting took her to the front lines of racial violence, from Rodney King's beating to George Floyd's death. Through it all, Miller grappled with rejection, belonging, and what it means to be Black in America. This memoir reveals how family secrets shape identity and how one woman's personal journey mirrors the nation's struggle with race.
Genres: african-american, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, identity-journey
Setting: Compton, Los Angeles
Period: 1967, 2020s
320 pages · Hardcover · Harper
Content warnings: racism