Our Song: A Memoir of Love and Race

(Paperback)

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The year was 1972. The place was rural Pennsylvania. Civil rights, the Vietnam War, and counterculture youth who were defying their traditional parents had the nation in social upheaval. Lynda was white, an anxious but earnest free spirit studying poetry, peyote, and peaceful protest at her small university. JT was black, a talented athlete recruited from the inner city to win basketball games for Lyndas hometown college. Their chemistry was irresistible, but their schools were hours apartso, in the days before email, cell phones, and video chat apps to connect them, they reached out to each other in the only way possible: letters. Songs and prose penned late into the night revealed a longing that neither had felt before. JT used music to show Lynda his sensitive side and deep desire for true love. Lynda strove to leave her conservative upbringing behind, to see truths beyond skin color and the pressurefor women, especiallyto conform. But their connection, though deep, was also fragile. Racist parents, a jealous friend, and a prior lover who came back to claim Lynda ultimately unraveled the delicate fabric woven by their words.

Now, four decades later, Lynda and JT may have another chance. Can they take it

This sensual memoir by human sexuality professor Lynda Smith Hoggan lays bare the raw contradictions between social expectations and the hearts desiresand leaves readers pondering what love might look like in a world where we are truly free.

Author Bio

Lynda Smith Hoggan is Professor Emeritus of Health and Human Sexuality at Mt. San Antonio College in Southern California. She has also been a professional gift shop duster, bra strap counter, playground instructor, army base secretary, garment district house model, barmaid,go-go dancer, high school teacher,technical writer, sex educator, and amateur martini taster. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Westwind: UCLA Journal of the Arts, the Los Angeles Times, Cultural Daily, the anthology Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis and more. She blogs at www.lyndasmithhoggan.com. She lives inSacramento, CA.