My Grandfather's Son
Encyclopedia
My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir is the 2007 memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

 of Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas
Clarence Thomas is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Succeeding Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Court....

, an Associate Justice
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States...

 of the United States Supreme Court.

The book spans all of Thomas's life to the present, beginning with his early childhood in the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...

 and his mother's decision to send him and his brother to be raised by her father and stepmother as she felt unable to care for them. He tells of his upbringing by his grandparents, his time in college and law school, and his career in government. Particular attention is focused on his Supreme Court confirmation hearings
Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination
On July 1, 1991, President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court of the United States to replace Thurgood Marshall, who had announced his retirement...

. The memoir discusses Thomas's emotional distress over divorcing his first wife, his intellectual evolution to conservativism, and the financial troubles that plagued him up through the late 1980s. It also includes a confession about his previously unknown struggle with alcohol
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

.

My Grandfather's Son was praised for its frank tone and well-written style. However, it was also criticized as being too partisan for a sitting Supreme Court Justice and for over-emphasizing claims of victimhood. Much of the media attention centered around his chapters on the confirmation hearings, one of which was titled "Invitation to a Lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...

." Thomas received a $1.5 million advance for the book, which hit number one on the New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

non-fiction
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 best-seller
New York Times Non-Fiction Bestsellers of 2007
This is a list of adult non-fiction books that topped The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list in 2007....

 list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...

.

Summary

Thomas describes his life chronologically in My Grandfather's Son. The early parts of the book are dominated by the impact his grandfather had on him, while sections describing his adulthood up to his Supreme Court appointment focus on overcoming personal demons without describing too much about his career. Following his confirmation to the Court, Thomas centers his writing on professional, ideological and judicial issues. The themes of race and self reliance run throughout, and many issues are framed through one or both of those lenses.

Early life and education

My Grandfather's Son begins with Thomas's birth, in rural Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 in 1948, to Leola Anderson, a maid who earned $10 a week. Thomas's father abandoned the family when Thomas was a toddler. In first grade his mother sent him and his brother to live with his maternal grandfather, Myers Anderson, and his wife in Savannah
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

. Anderson, who Thomas and his brother came to call "Daddy", ran a small fuel oil
Fuel oil
Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash...

 business and kept a strict household. Thomas struggled with racism and segregation throughout his childhood. He attended all black schools until the 10th grade, when Anderson paid for Thomas to attend a Catholic boarding school
Catholic school
Catholic schools are maintained parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system...

. Thomas, who had been an altar boy throughout his childhood, wanted to be a priest and was one of only two black students at the school. Upon graduating, he began studying to be a priest, but gave up at the age of 19 because he was disappointed with the church's stance on racism. As a result of Thomas dropping out of school, his grandfather kicked him from the house.

Thomas moved to Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 to attend The College of the Holy Cross. One of his reasons for moving was the racism he had encountered as a child, and his belief that in the North he would be freed from that. Once there, he found Massachusetts to be plagued with latent racism and far from the utopia he had anticipated. Thomas excelled academically and socially at Holy Cross, graduating with honors and marrying his long term girlfriend Kathy Ambush shortly after. He also began drinking steadily, a problem that would haunt him in later years. Thomas attended Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...

, graduating in 1974.

Early career

After Yale, Thomas took a job as an assistant district attorney under John Danforth
John Danforth
John Claggett "Jack" Danforth is a former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and former Republican United States Senator from Missouri. He is an ordained Episcopal priest. Danforth is married to Sally D. Danforth and has five adult children.-Education and early career:Danforth was born...

, then Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

's Attorney General
Missouri Attorney General
The Office of the Missouri Attorney General was created in 1806 when Missouri was part of the Louisiana Territory. Missouri's first Constitution in 1820 provided for an appointed Attorney General, but since the 1865 Constitution, the Attorney General has been elected...

. My Grandfather's Son continues to follow Thomas's career, including a stint at the legal department of Monsanto Company and his 1979 move to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 to work for then-Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 Danforth. Throughout this period Thomas made an intellectual journey from libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

 to conservative, culminating in changing his party registration to Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 in 1980. In 1981 he joined the Reagan Administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....

's Department of Education
United States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...

 as its Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office of Civil Rights, and in 1982 he was promoted to head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an independent federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,...

.

The main focus, however, is on Thomas's financial and emotional struggles. Although he says he was never an alcoholic, Thomas says that in the late 1970s and early 1980s his drinking became worse, and that he often drank while home alone. These confessions were the first time there had been any public suggestion that Thomas was a heavy drinker. Burdened by student loan
Student loan
A student loan is designed to help students pay for university tuition, books, and living expenses. It may differ from other types of loans in that the interest rate may be substantially lower and the repayment schedule may be deferred while the student is still in education...

s and subsisting on low government salaries, Thomas had a difficult time financially, almost getting evicted from his apartment several times. In one incident, a car rental agent cut up Thomas's credit card in front of him. After falling out of love with his first wife, Thomas worried about the morality of leaving her and his child.

Throughout most of this period Thomas was still estranged from his grandfather, and describes being haunted by the memory of Anderson kicking him out of the house. The two reunited briefly in 1983 when his step-grandmother was in the hospital, having a meaningful conversation and embracing at the end. The new found closeness was short-lived, and Anderson died the next month of a stroke before Thomas had another chance to see him.

Around this point, Thomas describes himself regaining control of his life. In 1983 he quit drinking cold-turkey. In 1984 Thomas divorced his first wife, however his son moved in with him, which calmed Thomas's fears of abandoning his child as his father had left him. In 1987 he married his second wife, Virginia Lamp, with their marriage effectively ending his financial woes. In 1989 Thomas became a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Supreme Court confirmation and term

Approximately a third of My Grandfather's Son is spent discussing Thomas's nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court. Thomas says he was initially reluctant to become a Justice, but that when President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...

 asked him he felt obliged to accept. When the hearings began on September 1, 1991, Thomas expected them to center around race and claims to have had no advance information about Anita Hill
Anita Hill
Anita Faye Hill is an American attorney and academic—presently a professor of social policy, law and women's studies at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she alleged that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had...

's accusations. My Grandfather's Son goes through the hearings day by day, with Thomas defending himself against his accusers and criticizing their motives. Thomas says he learned of the accusations of sexual harassment by Hill over the weekend after the first five days of the hearings when a pair of FBI agents visited his home.

Critical reception

William Grimes, in his book review
Book review
A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit. A book review could be a primary source opinion piece, summary review or scholarly review. It is often carried out in periodicals, as school work, or on the internet. Reviews are also often...

 for The New York Times, describes Thomas' writing of his time at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an independent federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,...

 under President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 (which, Grimes writes, made him an 'object of contempt and derision for mainstream civil rights organizations") as "adopting a defensive crouch, lashing out at his enemies, reopening old wounds and itemizing insults that should be forgotten." Grimes describes Thomas' treatment of the Anita Hill
Anita Hill
Anita Faye Hill is an American attorney and academic—presently a professor of social policy, law and women's studies at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she alleged that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had...

 affair as a portrayal of "himself as a persecuted, almost Christlike figure singled out by the liberal establishment, at the behest of his civil rights enemies, not just for criticism but also for total annihilation."
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