Title:  My One Good Nerve
(Clickt Title to Order On-line)

Author:  Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis (Introduction)
Publisher:  John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Date Published:  October 1998
Format:  Trade Cloth

Synopsis
Intimate reflections on loving and living from an American treasure.["My One Good Nerve draws me back into my sweetest past . . . a work of memory and art."--Maya Angelou.[My One Good Nerve is an exuberant collection of writings in the down-home tradition by that incomparable icon of the human spirit, Ruby Dee. Married for 50 years to fellow actor Ossie Davis, Dee has led an astonishingly full life. But she has never forgotten where she comes from as an African American woman. Fans who have admired and drawn strength over the years from Dee's outspoken human rights advocacy and unforgettable characters are rewarded here with many glimpses into her memories and convictions. Based on her long-running one-woman show, this book is an inspiration and a blessing.[Ruby Dee (New Rochelle, NY) grew up in Harlem and graduated from Hunter College in New York City. Inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1989, she was an original cast member of Broadway classics such as A Raisin in the Sun and South Pacific and appeared in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and the landmark adaptation of Alex Haley's Roots. She performs her one-woman show, My One Good Nerve, in theatres across the country.

Introduction by Ossie Davis

The author of this book is not the same absolutely pure and sweet woman who was Nat King Cole's girlfriend in the film The Saint Louis Blues, or the fresh-faced bride of Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story, or the long-suffering wife of Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun. Part of her, yes, is those women, but only part. Most women, I imagine- and surely Ruby- are a complex of many women. Few, perhaps, have remained as well hidden by only one facet of their personalities as has Ruby, the actor. Here is a Ruby Dee you may never have suspected- the writer.

Ruby, as a writer, is unique- one of a kind- which means she can only be compared with herself. Nothing about her work reminds me of anybody; all of it stands alone.
This does not mean that what she writes is esoteric, or exclusive, or private. Her meaning, her rhythm, and her insights are not mysterious, or enigmatic. What she has to say is wide open, free, immediately available to the curious. She has no puzzles that she dares the reader to solve. What she has to say is always public and will fit into any imagination- but only on Ruby's terms.

She tears the world apart as a child might do, and then, right before your eyes, she builds it back together again. The same old world, but through Ruby's eyes- it looks brand-new.
There is a profound simplicity in this point of view most times, which to appreciate requires that I become profoundly simple in my own point of view. Reading Ruby can be disarming.
Most of us grow up as quickly as we have to, getting further away by the day from who we were when we were children. We shorten our sails, temper our ambitions, and set aside our fondest expectations in order to face the day. But Ruby reminds us that a simpler world is only a thought away, with the light still glowing in undiminished vigor right in the middle of our secret mind. All we have to do is open our eyes, turn the page, and read.

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