True Vine, the book

True Vine is a book about a certain black experience in the USA—John Fountain’s life. But it’s more. It’s a handbook and a guide to what is possible in this country. It says, ‘You can do it.’ It says there are doors you can open but you have to put your own shoulder to them. This is the kind of book you’d like to place on every desk in every classroom in America. It is a hymn of a book, showing us the necessity of finding ourselves and being true to ourselves. Of all the books written in the last decade about struggle and triumph this is just about the best.”- FRANK MCCOURT, author of Angela’s Ashes and ’Tis

“Sometimes incredible insights on the challenges and harshness of inner-city poverty can be gained from reading about the experiences of remarkable individuals who defy overwhelming odds and escaped to a better life. No account more powerfully demonstrates the soundness of this view than John W. Fountain’s moving memoir, True Vine.”- WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University