he narrator of his experiences growing up in a Brooklyn housing project with a Jewish mother, James McBride describes his personal confusion about race and identity, the initial impulse to discover his mother's history, his evolution into music and writing, and his ultimate endeavor to tell his mother's story - a story that is, at heart, his own. James's identity is built around his recollection of time. The irony is that while memoir-writing and the act of "remembering" constitute a journey back in time, what is found there generates a possible source of new strength. Crucial to any idea of the future, the remembered history becomes a part of a person's identity, adds depth to the experience of living, and serves as a link between the present and the future. While James may not have the kind of "vision" that Ruth admires, he has the kind that is, perhaps, the necessary starting place for any fresh imagining of the future.