Love Lessons: African Americans And Sex, Romance, And Marriage In The Nineties

Between 1994 and 1997 George Davis interviewed more than two hundred people with a simple purpose: to find out how they felt about sex and love, not in the abstract, but as they really are experienced by a broad cross section of African Americans. This fascinating survey of emotional lives and love affairs uncovers a suprising and powerful collection of cultural and racial factors that make up love today.

Tender, angry, poignant, and always real, Love Lessons tells the stories of men and women as young as fifteen and as old as eighty. Whether middle-class or poor, living in the country or in the projects, and whether in love fleetingly or eternally, the people in Love Lessons give us an unforgettable look at the complicated mix of expectations and dreams, myths and realities that have shaped their views of sex, love, and marriage as well as their thoughts on being alone -- and being courageous.