CAMPBELL, Bebe Moore 1950-

PERSONAL: Born 1950; daughter of George Linwood Peter and Doris (a social worker; maiden name, Carter) Moore; married Tiko F. Campbell (divorced); married Ellis Gordon, Jr. (a banker); children: Maia. Education: University of Pittsburgh, B.A. (summa cum laude).

ADDRESSES: Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—Beth Swofford, William Morris Agency, 151 El Camino Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

CAREER: Freelance writer. Schoolteacher for five years; commentator on Morning Edition, National Public Radio. Guest on television talk shows, including Donahue, Oprah, Sonya Live, and Today, and numerous radio talk shows.

MEMBER: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta.

AWARDS, HONORS: Body of Work Award, National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women, 1978; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1980; Golden Reel Award, Midwestern Radio Theatre Workshop Competition, for Sugar on the Floor; Certificate of Appreciation, from the mayor of Los Angeles, CA; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Image Award for outstanding literary work (fiction); National Association for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) Outstanding Literature Award, 2003, for Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry.

WRITINGS:

Successful Women, Angry Men: Backlash in the Two-Career Marriage, Random House (New York, NY), 1986, revised, Berkeley (New York, NY), 2000.

Sweet Summer: Growing Up with and without My Dad, Putnam (New York, NY), 1989.

Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992.

Brothers and Sisters, Putnam (New York, NY), 1994.

Singing in the Comeback Choir, Putnam (New York, NY), 1998.

What You Owe Me, Putnam (New York, NY), 2001.

Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry, illustrated by E. B. Lewis, Putnam (New York, NY), 2003.

Also author of nonfiction work "Old Lady Shoes" and a radio-play adaptation; author of radio play Sugar on the Floor. Contributor to periodicals, including Ebony, Lear's, Ms., New York Times Book Review, New York Times Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Savvy, Seventeen, Washington Post, and Working Mother. Contributing editor of Essence.

ADAPTATIONS: Film rights to Sweet Summer were bought by Motown Productions, 1989; film rights to Brothers and Sisters were bought by Touchstone Pictures, 1995.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel, Where I Useta Live.

SIDELIGHTS: Bebe Moore Campbell's fiction and nonfiction have earned her widespread acclaim for the insights on racism and divorce that they contain. Campbell worked as a teacher for several years before turning to a career in freelance journalism following the birth of her daughter. It was an article for Savvy magazine that led to the development of her first book, Successful Women, Angry Men: Backlash in the Two-Career Marriage. Another article, about Father's Day, prompted the 1989 book, Sweet Summer: Growing Up with and without My Dad, her memoir as a child of divorce.

Because her parents separated when she was quite young, Campbell lived a divided existence, spending school years in Pennsylvania with her mother and summers in North Carolina with her father. Campbell draws a sharp contrast between the two worlds. According to Sweet Summer, her Philadelphia home was dominated by women—notably her mother, aunt, and grandmother—who urged her to speak well, behave properly, study hard, and generally improve herself. Life with her father, his mother, and his male friends, on the other hand, she describes as a freer one full of cigar and pipe smoke, beer, loud laughter, "roughness, gruffness, awkward gentleness," and a father's abiding love. Wheelchair-bound by a car accident, Campbell's father was nonetheless her hero, a perfect dad who loved her just for herself. When she learned that he was responsible, through speeding, not only for his own crippling accident but also for one that killed a boy, her image of him became tarnished, and Campbell had to come to terms with him as a flawed human being no longer the dream-father she had once idolized.

Critics hailed Sweet Summer for its poignant, positive look at a father-daughter relationship and especially for showing such a loving relationship in the black community. Times Literary Supplement contributor Adeola Solanke observed that in Campbell's memoir "a black father is portrayed by his daughter as a hero, instead of as the monster stalking the pages of many black American women writers." Similarly, poet Nikki Giovanni, writing in the Washington Post Book World, praised the book for providing "a corrective to some of the destructive images of black men that are prevalent in our society." Campbell also earned approval for her treatment of ordinary black life and for the vitality and clarity of her writing. Some reviewers expressed reservations about her work, however, suggesting that she is too hard on women; Martha South-gate, in the Village Voice, found "the absolute dichotomy Campbell perceives between men and women . . . disturbing." A few critics pointed out Campbell's lack of emphasis on social context and analysis, which some deemed a drawback, others an advantage. Stated Solanke, "One of the book's main strengths is that the political and social tumult it presents never eclipses the vitality and immediacy of personal experience."

By sharing her story, Campbell gives readers "the opportunity to reflect on our own fathers," mused Melissa Pritchard in Chicago's Tribune Books, "to appreciate their imperfect, profound impact on our lives." The importance of fathers and other men in girls' lives is in fact "perhaps the crucial message in her book," related Itabari Njeri in the Los Angeles Times, "one still not fully understood by society." As Campbell explained to Njeri, "Studies show that girls without that nurturing from a father or surrogate father are likely to grow up with damaged self-esteem and are more likely to have problems with their own adult relationships with men." She hoped that reading her book might inspire more divorced fathers to increase their participation in their children's lives. Reflecting on the flurry of Campbell's talk show appearances, the competition for paperback rights, and the interest shown in the book by film producers, Njeri suggested that she was indeed reaching her audience. Noted the critic, "Campbell's gentle, poignant story about her relationship with her father has struck a nerve."

Campbell turned to fiction in 1992 with her novel Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, which tells of a young black man murdered in 1955 whose white killer was acquitted by an all-white jury. The novel goes on to trace what happens to the families of the killer and the victim in subsequent years. As Campbell told a New York Times reporter: "I wanted to give racism a face. . . . African-Americans know about racism, but I don't think we really know the causes. I decided it's first of all a family problem." The care with which the book's characters are drawn has been cited as one of its greatest strengths. Clyde Edgerton, writing for the New York Times, felt that much of the power of the novel "results from Ms. Campbell's subtle and seamless shifting of point of view. She wears the skin and holds in her chest the heart of each of her characters, one after another, regardless of the character's race or sex, response to fear and hate, or need for pity, grace, punishment or peace."

The rioting that broke out in Los Angeles after the 1992 Rodney King trial was the impetus behind Campbell's novel Brothers and Sisters. Explained Veronica Chambers in the New York Times Magazine: "While many saw the Los Angeles riots as the curtain falling on the myth of racial unity, Campbell . . . saw them as an opportunity to write about race and gender." The setting is a Los Angeles bank during the days after the riots, and the author explores the conflicting loyalties held by two women friends, one black, the other white. In this work the author uses her characters differently than she has previously; New York Times reviewer Elizabeth Gleick dubbed the protagonists "a fairly conventional batch," and a Publisher Weekly contributor noted that they are "intriguing (if not always three-dimensional)." Instead, Brothers and Sisters focuses on the complexities of the characters' relations. Time contributor Christopher John Farley praised the work accordingly: "Writing with wit and grace, Campbell shows how all our stories—white, black, male, female—ultimately intertwine." Ms. reviewer Retha Powers commended Campbell for her "astute observations about the subtleties of race and race relations in the U.S." The popular success of the novel was proven by its appearance on the New York Times best-seller list two weeks after its release. Writing in the New York Times, Pamela Newkirk placed Campbell "among a growing number of black women whose writing has mass crossover appeal. One reason for that appeal—to readers as well as to talk show hosts—is that in her characters, and in person, she manages to articulate deftly both black and white points of view."

Campbell's Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry won the National Association for the Mentally Ill's Outstanding Literature Award the same year it was published. As Campbell explained in a preface to the book—a fictional account of a young African-American girl living with a mentally ill mother—she wrote the story "to address the fears and concerns of children who have a parent who suffers from mental illness." Her introductory note to adults discusses bipolar disorder and suggests ways in which the community can play a supportive role for those who suffer from it. In a review for Publishers Weekly, a contributor described the picture book narrated from a child's point of view as an "insightful, moving tale." "Most importantly," commented Suzanne Rust in Black Issues Book Review, Campbell shows young readers that her young protagonist "is not responsible for her mother's behavior." Anna DeWind Walls added in School Library Journal that the book's "multicultural cast is depicted with realistic sensitivity," making Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry a "skillful treatment of a troubling subject."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Campbell, Bebe Moore, Sweet Summer: Growing Up with and without My Dad, Putnam (New York, NY), 1989.

Newsmakers 96, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1996, pp. 76-77.

PERIODICALS

African American Review, summer, 1997, Kari J. Winter, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 369.

American Visions, October-November, 1994, T. Andreas Spellman, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 38.

Black Enterprise, February, 1995, Sheryl Hillard Tucker, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 224.

Black Issues Book Review, September-October, 2003, Suzanne Rust, review of Sometimes Mommy Gets Angry, p. 68.

Booklist, June 1, 1994, Donna Seaman, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 1725; December 15, 1997, Donna Seaman, review of Singing in a Comeback Choir, p. 666.

Entertainment Weekly, September 9, 1994, Vanessa V. Friedman, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 78.

Library Journal, August, 1994, Marie F. Jones, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 124; December, 1994, Danna C. Bell-Russel, review of Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, p. 154; February 15, 1998, Michele Leber, review of Singing in the Comeback Choir, p. 169.

Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1989; December 1, 1989.

Ms., September-October, 1994, Retha Powers, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 78.

Newsweek, April 29, 1996, Malcolm Jones, Jr., "Successful Sisters: Faux Terry Is Better Than No Terry," p. 79.

New York Times, November 15, 1995, Pamela Newkirk, "An Expert, Unexpectedly, on Race," p. C6.

New York Times Book Review, June 11, 1989, Bharati Mukherjee, review of Sweet Summer, p. 47; September 20, 1992, Clyde Edgerton, "Medicine for Broken Souls," review of Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, p. 13; October 16, 1994, Elizabeth Gleick, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 18; April 12, 1998, Betsy Groban, review of Singing in the Comeback Choir, p. 17.

New York Times Magazine, December 25, 1994, Veronica Chambers, "Which Counts More, Gender or Race?," p. 16.

People, November 21, 1994, V. R. Peterson, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 32.

Publishers Weekly, June 30, 1989, Lisa See, "Bebe Moore Campbell; Her Memoir of 'A Special Childhood' Celebrates the Different Styles of Her Upbringing in a Divided Black Family" (interview), pp. 82-83; July 4, 1994, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 51; December 15, 1997, review of Singing in the Comeback Choir, p. 49; December, 8, 2003, review of Sometimes Mommy Gets Angry, p. 61.

School Library Journal, February, 1995, Ginny Ryder, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 134; September, 2003, Anna DeWind Walls, review of Sometimes Mommy Gets Angry, p. 175.

Time, October 17, 1994, Christopher John Farley, review of Brothers and Sisters, p. 81.

Times Literary Supplement, October 26, 1990, p. 1148.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), June 18, 1989, p. 7.

U.S. Catholic, September, 1987, Gerald M. Costello, review of Successful Women, Angry Men: Backlash in the Two-Career Marriage, p. 48.

Village Voice, July 4, 1989, p. 63.

Washington Post Book World, June 18, 1989, pp. 1, 8.

ONLINE

Bebe Moore Campbell Home Page,http://www.bebemoorecampbell.com/ (July 24, 2004).*