Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir

Grimes begins ORDINARY HAZARDS in the early 1950s. She's a small child living in New York City with her older sister, Carol, and her mother, a paranoid schizophrenic who often speaks to imaginary friends. Her father, a musician and a gambler, is absent from her life. By 5, she and Carol are sent to foster homes, as her mother is unable to care for them and no family member will agree to take them in. Grimes (without her sister) is eventually placed with a loving foster family in a small quiet town outside of New York City, where she stays until she's 9 and her mother remarries. The Brooklyn neighborhood where she goes to live with her mother and stepfather, Clark, has gangs on every corner, and when Grimes stands up to some girl gang members, she's violently attacked. Her mother's paranoia becomes so extreme that she's committed time and time again for a psychiatric hold and then released. Things become a bit better when Carol moves back in with the family. But she soon leaves, and Grimes believes that her mother chose Clark over her daughter. Her stepfather begins to watch her in the shower, and when she's 13, he sexually assaults her. She knows her mother won't believe her, so she says nothing. By 1963, Clark has finally left and there's another move to yet another school, where she makes friends with other kids who have big dreams for themselves. Her father becomes a constant presence in her life, signing her up to do a reading of her poems for the first time at a library in Harlem. He takes her to the theater, movies, and ballet, showing her that "not all stars in the firmament were white." The memoir ends in 1966, but an epilogue lets readers know that a year later she moved in with Carol and had a life-changing encounter with renowned African American author James Baldwin.