Project girl / Janet McDonald.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McDonald, Janet, 1953-2007.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Joanna Banks Collection of African American Books (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

McDonald, Janet, 1953-2007.

McDonald, Janet.

African American women--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

African American women.

Gifted girls--New York (State)--New York--Biography.

Gifted girls.

Inner cities.

Social conditions.

Public housing.

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)--Biography.

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.).

Public housing--New York (State)--New York.

Inner cities--New York (State)--New York--Social conditions.

New York (State)--New York.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

McDonald, Janet, 1953- (autograph) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Banks, Joanna (donor) (Banks Collection copy)

Physical Description:

6 unnumbered pages, 231 pages, 3 unnumbered pages, 8 pages of unnumbered plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Projectgirl

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

Summary:

Project Girl is the powerful story of a black woman with a genius IQ whose coming-of-age in a Brooklyn public housing project locks her into a struggle with the growing poverty, drug abuse, and violence of a neighborhood in decline.

Janet McDonald grew up in a family in pursuit of the American Dream, a dream that seemed within easy reach of the gifted student. In school, McDonald soared past her peers into a world of privilege -- college at Vassar, studies in Paris, law school at Cornell -- one she was prepared for only intellectually. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she held on emotionally to the project world she was poised to leave behind.

Project Girl is a story of a divided Life and of the struggle to reconcile two opposing worlds. In college, there was drug abuse. In law school, an arson arrest. She suffered a nervous breakdown after a rape. Only through brains, will, and support from friends and family was McDonald able to gain control of her life.

Few books have told about the tensions of growing up gifted in the inner city so candidly, and few success stories seem as unlikely as the one narrated in Project Girl.

Notes:

"Designed by Abby Kagan."

"Jacket design by Rodrigo Corral. Author photograph by G. Rae Wock."

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy signed "May 2002 Defy defeat. Janet McDonald" by the author.

Kislak Center Banks Collection copy presented to the Penn Libraries in 2018 by Joanna Banks.

Banks Collection copy: dustjacket retained.

Banks Collection copy is "First edition, 1999. Third printing, 1999".

ISBN:

0374237573

OCLC:

39079181