Hawkins, a musician, host of the podcast What Happened in Alabama?, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and former Wall Street Journal writer, turns to memoir to trace a harrowing and intimate family story. When Hawkins began having nightmares in his 40s, it reminded him of the nightmares his father had as a child. He asked his father about those nightmares, and his father answered with a single word: “Alabama.” Hawkins now decides it is time he learned more and turns his journalism skills to uncovering his family history. He discovers generations of intertwined personal tragedies caused by the racist hatred and violence of Jim Crow. Hawkins is finally able to ask his father difficult questions, and his father is finally ready to tell his adult son what he could not tell him as a young boy. VERDICT Hawkins’s memoir is deeply reflective and transparent about his personal story and family history, sharing the love, restrictions, violence, and trauma he experienced throughout his life as a Black man living in a post–civil rights movement world. This work is vitally important and essential to understanding the magnitude of the impact of racism and violence.