The Same River Twice

In the early 1980s, "The Color Purple" was a runaway success. It had won the Pulitzer Price and Steven Spielberg was making the book into a film. Yet for Alice Walker, this critical success was also an extremely difficult time as she became the object of attacks both personal and political. At the same time, her mother suffered a major stroke and Alice Walker also fell ill with the debilitating condition, Lyme disease. In her heartfelt and extremely personal account of this time, Alice Walker describes the experience of watching the film being made as she weathered the controversy surrounding it. It is a graceful and searingly honest view of the way public and private challenges mesh and of the integrity at the heart of Alice Walker's life and work.