James McBride | |
|---|---|
 McBride at the 2013Texas Book Festival | |
| Born | (1957-09-11)September 11, 1957 (age 68) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist, musician |
| Education | Oberlin College (BA) Columbia University (MA) |
| Genre | Memoir, screenplay |
| Notable works | The Color of Water The Good Lord Bird (National Book Award, 2013) The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store |
| Notable awards | Anisfield-Wolf Book Award |
| Children | 3 |
| Signature | |
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| Website | |
| jamesmcbride | |
James McBride (born September 11, 1957)[1] is an American writer and musician. He is the recipient of the 2013National Book Award for fiction for his novelThe Good Lord Bird.
McBride's father, Rev. Andrew D. McBride (August 8, 1911 – April 5, 1957) wasAfrican-American; he died of cancer at the age of 45. His mother, Ruchel Dwajra Zylska (name changed to Rachel Deborah Shilsky, and later to Ruth McBride Jordan; April 1, 1921 – January 9, 2010), was aJewish immigrant from Poland. James was raised inBrooklyn'sRed Hook housing projects until he was seven years old and was the last child Ruth had from her first marriage, the last child of Rev. Andrew McBride, and the eighth of 12 children.
McBride states:
I'm proud of my Jewish history....Technically I guess you could say I'm Jewish since my mother was Jewish...but she converted (to Christianity). So the question is for theologians to answer. ... I just get up in the morning happy to be living."[2]
His memoir,The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (1995), describes his family history and his relationship with his mother.[3]
McBride graduated fromOberlin College in 1979, and received his journalism degree fromColumbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1980.[4][5]
McBride is well known for his 1995 memoir, the bestselling bookThe Color of Water, which describes his life growing up in a large, poor American-African family led by an ethnically Jewish mother. She was strict and the daughter of anOrthodoxrabbi. During her first marriage, to Rev. Andrew McBride, she converted to Christianity and became a devout Christian. The memoir, which won anAnisfield-Wolf Book Award,[6] spent more than two years onThe New York Times bestseller list, and has become an American classic. It is read in high schools and universities across America, has been translated into 16 languages, and sold more than 2.1 million copies.[7]
In 2002, McBride published a novel,Miracle at St. Anna, drawing on the history of the overwhelmingly African-American92nd Infantry Division in the Italian campaign from mid-1944 to April 1945. The book was adapted into the 2008 movieMiracle at St. Anna, directed bySpike Lee.
In 2005, McBride published the first volumeThe Process, a CD-based documentary about life as lived by low-profile jazz musicians.
His 2008 novelSong Yet Sung is about an enslaved woman who has dreams about the future, and a wide array of freed black people, enslaved people, and whites whose lives come together in the odyssey surrounding the last weeks of this woman's life.Harriet Tubman served as an inspiration for the book, which gives a fictional depiction of a code of communication that enslaved people used to help runaways attain freedom. The book, based on real events that occurred on Maryland's Eastern Shore, also featured notorious criminalPatty Cannon as a villain.[8]
In 2012, McBride co-wrote and co-producedRed Hook Summer (2012) with Spike Lee.[9]
In July 2013, McBride co-authoredHard Listening (2013) with the rest of the Rock Bottom Remainders (published byColiloquy).[10] In August 2013, hisThe Good Lord Bird, a novel, was released by Riverhead Books. The work details the life of notorious abolitionistJohn Brown. It won the 2013National Book Award for fiction.[11]
On September 22, 2016, PresidentBarack Obama awarded McBride the 2015National Humanities Medal "for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America. Through writings about his own uniquely American story, and his works of fiction informed by our shared history, his moving stories of love display the character of the American family."[12]
In December 2020, Emily Temple ofLiterary Hub reported that his novelDeacon King Kong had made 16 lists of the best books of 2020,[13] while in February 2021 it won theAndrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.[14]Deacon King Kong received the 2021Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for fiction[15] and was selected forOprah's Book Club.
In 2023, he releasedThe Heaven & Earth Grocery Store about the intertwining lives of African American, Jewish, immigrant, and white residents in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, largely taking place in the 1920s and 30s. The novel was named 2023 Book of the Year by both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.[16] It was also awarded the Kirkus Prize for Fiction,[17] the 2024 Jewish Fiction Award,[18] and the 2024Sophie Brody Award.[19] In 2025, the novel was longlisted for theInternational Dublin Literary Award.[20]
On November 3, 2025, he was inducted Into the 2025 class of Library Lions by the New York Public Library.[21]
McBride is the tenor saxophonist for theRock Bottom Remainders, a group of best-selling authors who are also musicians. "Hopefully", McBride says, "the group has retired for good." He also toured as a saxophonist with jazz legendLittle Jimmy Scott[citation needed] and has his own band that plays an eclectic blend of music. He has written songs forAnita Baker,Grover Washington Jr.,Pura Fé, andGary Burton.[22] McBride composed the theme music for the Clint Harding Network,Jonathan Demme's New Orleans documentaryRight to Return, and Ed Shockley's off-Broadway musicalBobos.[23]
McBride was awarded theAmerican Music Theater Festival'sStephen Sondheim Award in 1993, the American Arts and LettersRichard Rodgers Award in 1996, and the inauguralASCAP Richard Rodgers Horizons Award in 1996.[24]
McBride is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence atNew York University. He has three children with his ex-wife and lives in New York City andLambertville, New Jersey.[25]
