Finding Me ~ by Viola Davis

I sat in utter shock to hear how Viola Davis described to Oprah Winfrey her earliest journey through life -- indeed her horrifying childhood -- on a recent Netflix Special Event interview, Oprah + Viola. She talked about the debilitating level of poverty she had experienced, the trauma of being terrorized by bullies, the shame of going to school smelling of urine due to the lack of soap and running water at home, and the terror of rats jumping on her bed as she and her siblings tried to sleep. Hearing all this was, as Oprah said, “…like nothing I’ve ever heard or even read before in fiction.” But as Maya Angelou famously wrote, “And Still I Rise.”

Ms. Davis was compelled during the starkness of the pandemic to bring these stories from the darkness into the light, as a way of continuing to heal, but also to help others. She includes wonderful stories like getting on her knees and praying to God for the exact qualities of the husband she wanted, and then meeting him three weeks later; they are now in their 19th year of marriage. Things have certainly changed, not to mentioned her tremendous talent and the career it has garnered her as a thespian, her wonderful life as an adoptive mother, and her profile as a glamourous and iconic Black woman. It’s no wonder she can “go there” as an actor! The book will be released tomorrow, April 28th, in print and on Audible in Viola’s voice.