Pearl

A detailed Summary of Pearl

Neil Henry's Pearl's Secret is a fascinating autobiographical journey of an African American man's search for his racial identity. Henry is a light-skinned African American man who tries to piece together a few scraps passed down in his family and many years of family stories to figure out what lies behind his dual-race history. He has been plagued throughout his entire life by confusion over his skin color and how it allows him to fit into society. The birth of his daughter finally triggers him to begin his journey, because he does not want her to suffer the same confusing fate. The search concludes in a lunch with his "white" family, filled with emotion, confusion and curiosity on both sides.

Henry's great-great grandmother Laura Brumley had an extensive (believed consensual through family lore) affair with a wealthy white landowner, Arthur Beaumont, in post Civil War Louisiana. That relationship bore one quadroon daughter, Pearl, for whom the book is named. Beaumont later married a white woman and had a white family and turned his back on his black family for many years. After generations of family stories about a white patriarch, Henry decides to find this other family, this white family.

As the day progresses and he meets more of the family, his feelings change, not from the hate or anger he had anticipated for such a long time but surprisingly into pity. Henry sees the Beaumont descendants as naive, poor white trash (or Pee Dub as Henry's mother likes to refer to them) "White racism was their problem, their legacy in this case....They would have to explain to nine-year-old Patrick (Beaumont's great-great-grandson) what KKK meant...or bury the shame in a tortured, cancerous silence" (Pg. 271.)

On the black side of the family he discovered that his great-grandmother Pearl had secretly stayed in contact with Beaumont's daughter in-law throughout her entire life. In her lifelong confusion and search for her racial identity she tried to please and be a part of both worlds. Unfortunately she never truly fit into either one "Pearl never felt fully comfortable in her own skin, and because of this, people who loved her remembered a kind of sadness always hovering over her." (Pg. 296)

If we look at the Beaumont/white side of the family we see one side and version of storytelling over the past. The most striking story that we find out, is that while many in the family were informed of Pearl's existence they were all told that she was Indian not black, because as Beaumont's granddaughter put it "knowing my daddy and how he felt about race, well - better Indian than black."(Pg. 223.) Beaumont's son put together a parallel piece to Henry's only a century earlier. He put together a brief book (88 pages) filled with family history so that his descendants could look back on their ancestors with pride. The only difference was that Beaumont's son's history was written with a longing eye turned towards past Southern glory, specifically the inferiority of blacks.

The racially charged climate that he grew up in, had a drastic impact not only as a husband, but also in all his relationships with women throughout his life. His social life with women ranged wildly. He would go through stretches where he would be with no one, then he would settle into periods when he would be with numerous women in a short amount of time. He fell madly in love with a black woman, but ended up marrying an orthodox Jew. Finally he falls in love with his current wife Letitia a white woman, who descends from a variety of European countries. It appears to me that Henry's love life symbolizes his search for love and acceptance from his own white and black sides. Similar to his great-grandmother Pearl's search a century before.

As he gathers his information he finally traces Beaumont's granddaughter living in Louisiana. After a few friendly exchanges with her and her daughter he plans to meet them along with much of their family. This planned meeting is not only the culmination of six long, hard years of research for Henry, but also a lot of pain and controversy for generations of his ancestors.

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Approximate Word count = 2728
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People