Flying Home Material:Paperback Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood

Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood these words all too well

Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same

and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United StatesIn a life filled with meaning and accomplishment

But how can Ailey live up to everyone’s expectations when half of her family rejects the truth of a fraught racial history

David Hammons

Flying Home Material:Paperback Ailey Pearl Garfield has understoodWritten between 1937 and 1954 and now available in paperback for the first time, these thirteen stories are a potent distillation of the genius of Ralph Ellison. Six of them remained unpublished during Ellison's lifetime and were discovered among the author's effects in a folder labeled "Early Stories." But they all bear the hallmarks the thematic reach, musically layered voices, and sheer ebullience that Ellison would bring to his classic Invisible