Satin Dolls

Satin Dolls
Author: Elsa E. Cook
Publisher:
Total Pages: 442
Release: 1987
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780671623272

Tells the story of Lucy, a former slave, and her descendants, Sarah, Bobby, Tess, and Carmen, who is determined to find stardom as a singer

Satin Doll

Satin Doll
Author: Karen E. Quinones Miller
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2001-10-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0743217454

Satin Doll is a witty, insightful, heartbreaking and honest tale about romantic relationships, friendships, and class distinctions. Bang! Being shot in the middle of the night and left for dead is what it took to open her eyes. Until that fateful moment, Regina Harris lived la vida loca with pimps and hustlers, a gangster lifestyle that supplied the money she needed to get high and forget the poverty of Harlem. Now she has turned her life around, is a college graduate and freelance journalist, and makes enough money to live on the Upper West Side and hob- nob with the city's movers and shakers. She's become the classy Satin Doll of the Duke Ellington song. But she can't forget where she came from: her three best friends are from the old neighborhood. The Harlem homegirls. Regina tries to give emotional support to each of her friends as they deal with their own personal issues: Yvonne is a single mother looking for the right man. Tamika must raise two children alone while their father does time in jail for robbery. Puddin' lives her life by picking up men and smoking weed. Living in two worlds; comfortable in neither. On a night out partying with her homegirls in Harlem, Regina meets aspiring lawyer Charles Whitfield, son of a pro-minent, upper-class black family in Philadelphia. He loves her but not her rough-around-the-edges friends. She loves him but doesn't think she can live up to his family's expectations. Regina tries desperately to hide her former life, but when her past is revealed, it threatens to destroy her relationship with Charles and the life she has worked hard to create. From its dramatic beginning to the fateful ending, Satin Doll is a witty and truthful take on relationships, friendships, and class distinctions.

The 'Baby Dolls'

The 'Baby Dolls'
Author: Kim Marie Vaz
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2013-01-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 080715072X

One of the first women's organizations to mask and perform during Mardi Gras, the Million Dollar Baby Dolls redefined the New Orleans carnival tradition. Tracing their origins from Storyville-era brothels and dance halls to their re-emergence in post-Katrina New Orleans, author Kim Marie Vaz uncovers the fascinating history of the "raddy-walking, shake-dancing, cigar-smoking, money-flinging" ladies who strutted their way into a predominantly male establishment. The Baby Dolls formed around 1912 as an organization of African American women who used their profits from working in New Orleans's red-light district to compete with other Black prostitutes on Mardi Gras. Part of this event involved the tradition of masking, in which carnival groups create a collective identity through costuming. Their baby doll costumes -- short satin dresses, stockings with garters, and bonnets -- set against a bold and provocative public behavior not only exploited stereotypes but also empowered and made visible an otherwise marginalized female demographic. Over time, different neighborhoods adopted the Baby Doll tradition, stirring the creative imagination of Black women and men across New Orleans, from the downtown Trem area to the uptown community of Mahalia Jackson. Vaz follows the Baby Doll phenomenon through one hundred years with photos, articles, and interviews and concludes with the birth of contemporary groups, emphasizing these organizations' crucial contribution to Louisiana's cultural history.

Made Men

Made Men
Author: Greg B. Smith
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2003-02-04
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 9780425185513

For years, the DeCavalcantes, the most powerful Mob family in Jersey, labored in the shadows of the more famous families in New York—the likes of the Gambinos and the Columbos. Dismissed by the big-city capos, the DeCavalcantes finally came into their own when they found their lives mirrored in the television hit, The Sopranos. Overnight it legitimized the made men of the Garden State. Now they were a familia to be reckoned with. Unfortunately with high profile came high risk. As member turned against member, as trusted friend turned terrified informant, the FBI put the brakes on the DeCavalcante’s explosive ride into infamy, hastening a fall from honor that would become as infamous as their notorious ascension into the annals of organized crime. Based on more than 1,000 hours of secretly recorded conversations, Made Men delivers for the first time, the unprecedented and completely uncensored behind-the-scenes truth of a historically clandestine world—of violent life and sudden death inside and outside the mob, told by the very men who made it.

Los Angeles Noir

Los Angeles Noir
Author: Denise Hamilton
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2007
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1933354224

Akashic Books Noir Series is selling great; nearly every title has gone into multiple printings. Whole series to be promoted at major trade conferences and mystery conferences. Major media push: print, radio, television.

This Thing of Ours

This Thing of Ours
Author: David Lavery
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2002
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780231127813

As a work of popular culture, an innovative television series and a media phenomenon, 'The Sopranos' has made an impact throughout the world. This text investigates both the wide appeal and controversial reception of this highly-debated drama.

Beautiful Curly Me

Beautiful Curly Me
Author: Ona Zoe Oli
Publisher:
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2020-05-20
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781734557213

I'm Down

I'm Down
Author: Mishna Wolff
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2009-05-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 142998290X

Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esqe sweater, gold chains and a Kangol—telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. You couldn't tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried," writes Wolff. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter Down. Unfortunately, Mishna didn't quite fit in with the neighborhood kids: she couldn't dance, she couldn't sing, she couldn't double dutch and she was the worst player on her all-black basketball team. She was shy, uncool and painfully white. And yet when she was suddenly sent to a rich white school, she found she was too "black" to fit in with her white classmates. I'm Down is a hip, hysterical and at the same time beautiful memoir that will have you howling with laughter, recommending it to friends and questioning what it means to be black and white in America.