An inspiring story of a black woman's coming-of-age. Project Girlis the powerful story of a black woman with a genius IQ whose coming-of-age in a Brooklyn public housing project locks her into a struggle with the growing poverty, drug abuse, and violence of a neighborhood in decline. Janet McDonald grew up in a family in pursuit of the American Dream, a dream that seemed within easy reach of the gifted student. In school, McDonald soared past her peers into a world of privilege--college at Vassar, studies in Paris, law school at Cornell--one she was prepared for only intellectually. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she held on emotionally to the project world she was poised to leave behind. Project Girlis a story of a divided life and of the struggle to reconcile two opposing worlds. In college, there was drug abuse. In law school, an arson arrest. She suffered a nervous breakdown after a rape. Only through brains, will, and support from friends and family was McDonald able to gain control of her life. Few books have told about the tensions of growing up gifted in the inner city so candidly, and few success stories seem as unlikely as the one narrated inProject Girl. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

This rather unstructured memoir certainly contains high drama, but it doesn't quite succeed in illuminating the larger social issues‘race, class, education, identity‘to which it implicitly points. McDonald, the gifted child of an "old-fashioned" black family (hardworking father, tireless at-home mom) living in a Brooklyn housing project, was a "nerd" in the projects but an alienated "project girl" in the more privileged world to which her academic achievement earned her entry. She made it to Vassar in the early 1970s only to become a heroin user, but righted herself (especially during a junior year abroad in Paris) in time to enter law school. She was shattered again when she was raped, after which she expressed her rage by setting fires in her law school dorm. She returned to school and now practices law in her beloved Paris. However gripping and potentially instructive this mix of harrowing and inspirational facts are, the telling is awkward. While McDonald portrays her post-rape torment with graphic intensity, her self-analysis‘especially of her heroin problem‘are shallow. Her writing is fluid‘so fluid that it's shame that she relies on so many previously written journal excerpts that chronicle not only her progress at work but also her mood swings, off-the-cuff remarks ("We may have a woman Vice-President!") and ideological natterings unbuttressed by thoughtful argument ("America's corporate structure... is responsible for each and every individual moment of suffering"). Despite these flaws, readers will find in these pages a spirited challenge to the idea that upward mobility is easy or comes without a heavy psychological cost. (Jan.) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Now practicing law in Paris, McDonald was raised in the projects of Brooklyn, NY, in the midst of poverty, drug abuse, and violence. This is the wrenching story of her escape from that life to Vassar, Columbia, and then to NYU Law School and the personal crises she surmounted along the way. (LJ 11/1/98) From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

McDonald, who grew up in the projects of New York and now practices law in Paris, laments what she calls "the powerful undertow of the new projects" in this powerful autobiography. She contrasts the old projects, populated by working-class families eager to move on, with the projects of welfare recipients, drug addiction, violence, and a disheartening scorn for education and achievement. McDonald recalls being labeled the "white-girl-in-residence" by family and friends, suspicious of her intelligence and drive. An exceptionally bright woman, McDonald went to Vassar, Cornell Law School, NYU Law School, and Columbia University in an erratic, emotionally charged search for a career and flight from the projects. Bouncing from school to school, looking for an identity, McDonald suffered a nervous breakdown following a rape, set fires in the dorms in a misguided effort to cope with her anger, and struggled for years with numbing depression. Racism and the cultural dissonance outside the projects, and the lure of drugs and acceptance of failure in the projects, compel her to return repeatedly until she is finally able to break the cycle. --Vanessa Bush From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.