The past considered

When Barack Obama became president, Michele Norris decided to write a book about America’s changing relationship to race. She wasn’t very far into her research when she began to uncover secrets within her own family, including the fact that her late father had once been shot by a police officer as a young African-American man growing up in Alabama. Norris turned her reporter’s investigative focus, well-honed at her day job as the co-host of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, toward her own family history and emerged with a new memoir.

The Grace of Silence: A Memoir explores the way parents labor over what to tell their children, and what to leave unsaid, in an effort to help them thrive in a complicated world. The book is the selection for this year’s Sacramento State One Book Program. Norris will speak about her writing on Thursday, October 20, at 7 p.m. at the campus’ University Union Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.csus.edu/onebook.