Dorothy Lazard grew up in the Bay Area of the 1960s and ’70s, surrounded by an expansive network of family, and hungry for knowledge. Today Lazard is celebrated for her distinguished career as a librarian and public historian, and in these pages she connects her early intellectual pursuits to the career that made her a community pillar. As she writes with honesty about the challenges she faced in her youth, Lazard’s memoir remains triumphant, animated by curiosity, careful reflection, and deep enthusiasm for life.
“My family arrived in California the winter after the Summer of Love. Ours was not a journey of eager anticipation of the nineteenth century gold miners who rushed to the Sierra or of the anxious desperation of the Dust Bowl refugees who came before us. We were reluctant migrants. But all children are.”
Upcoming Public Events
LA Times Festival of Books
“Got Books? Why Reading Matters” panel
Saturday, April 20; 1:30 p.m.
Albert and Dana Broccoli Theatre, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Lyrics and Dirges
Wednesday, May 29; 7 p.m.
Pegasus Bookstore, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley
Reviews for “What You Don’t Know…”
“Lazard’s story may exemplify a cultural awakening experienced by many of her Black peers, but it is also intensely individual, shaped as much by her own family circumstances as by the world around her…Compelling and memorable.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Recent years have seen a new wave of memoirs by Black women, including some about childhood and coming of age. But this memoir gives particular—and perhaps in many similar books, less emphasized—weight to the author’s formation as a reader, writer, and intellectual. Poignant story of youth that is appealing to adult and young adult readers alike.”
— Rakuten Kobo
“In clear, calm, resolute prose, Lazard recounts the onslaught of urgent issues overpowering her Bay Area childhood, from “America’s foreign policy and military might” as the Vietnam War raged, to wealth, class and racism…”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“I've rarely encountered such an endearing authorial voice. Wry and observant, Dorothy Lazard's writing evokes such distinctive neighbors and family members in a time, place, and culture truly worth cherishing.”
— Susan D. Anderson, History Curator, California African American Museum
“Lazard refers to her narrative as ‘my recovery mission to retrieve a time in my life that marked me more deeply than any other,’ and she succeeds handily, thanks to rigorous scene-building and memorable characterizations of her family. This is a powerful account.”
—Publishers Weekly