Naming All These Women: Jill Nelson’s Portrayals in Volunteer Slavery and Straight, No Chaser

Jill Nelson’s writing is always bold, sometimes shocking, most often in defense of someone else. The works considered in this chapter, while ostensibly about Nelson herself, help to illuminate the conditions of a broad swathe of black women. Two of her books, Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience (1993)¹ and Straight, No Chaser: How I Became a Grown-up Black Woman (1997),² come during a boom of autobiographical writing. Her depiction of a middle-class experience, complete with workplace experiences in a hostile, if ostensibly open, work environment, serves less as a model than as a cautionary tale. Some avenues that are supposed to be open to Nelson in the wake of various liberation movements are in fact closed; others prove treacherous. Nelson bares a lot of herself in describing her experiences, often showing herself in a less-than-favorable light. This exposure mirrors a vulnerability she claims to have felt her entire life. In Straight, No Chaser, she uses her endangerment and her various coping mechanisms to the benefit of her audience, providing both an essential way into a particular life and some hope of overcoming even the most persistent adversity.