"Another Way Home tells the story of all of us looking to be warm and dry. It is a story to share. A story to pass along."
— Nikki Giovanni
"A major accomplishment of Another Way Home is to demonstrate how a woman of mixed race could live a life that does not conform to all of the stereotypes promulgated by popular fiction and traditional perceptions. Ronne Hartfield's mother, fondly known as Day, was not a tragic mulatto. She knew how, as Hartfield puts it so well, to live with who she was and with who all of her people were. This is a loving and honest book."
— Robert B. Stepto, author of Blue as the Lake: A Personal Geography
"In this lyrical, riveting account of her mother's life and history, Ronne Hartfield underscores the importance and permanence of our families' legacies. You'll be so enriched by reading it."
— Marian Wright Edelman, author of The Measure of Our Success and president of the
"A poignant, powerful, and soulful narrative, Another Way Home captures the layers of life, the mixing of cultures, the crossing of boundaries, and the complex history of Day Shepherd, a mulatto woman—born at the turn of the last century—who looked white and lived colored. Blending the imagination of a storyteller, the heart of a poet, the lens of a social historian, and the devotion of a daughter, Ronne Hartfield weaves an inspiring intergenerational tale of an American family; a tale of ambition and compassion, anguish and hope; a tale filled with welcome warmth and earthy humor."
— Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, author of Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer
"This is a warm and touching memoir of a close-knit family as well as a record of the tumultuous history of race relations in the U.S."
— Vanessa Bush, Booklist
"Bad mothers make for good books; so goes the conventional thinking. So go book sales and book-review headlines. Now along comes Ronne Hartfield's Another Way Home to turn conventional thinking (thank goodness) on its head. Graceful, intelligent, full-hearted and searching, Hartfield's memoir tells the story of her mother's journey from a Southern plantation to the clamor of New Orleans to the bustle of Chicago's Bronzeville. . . . Hartfield's purpose in writing this memoir is to paint a portrait of mixed-race America by using the particulars of her mother's life. What choices did a woman who looked white but considered herself to be black have, in the early decades of the American Century? What was expected of her? Was her skin color a subterfuge?"--Beth Kephart, Chicago Tribune
— Beth Kephart, Chicago Tribune