Stealing Home: An Intimate Family Portrait by the Daughter of Jackie Robinson

June 1997

"Finally, a book written by the child of a celebrity who doesn't blame the parent," writes the eloquent and familiar comedian Bill Cosby, of Sharon Robinson's new memoir, Stealing Home: An Intimate Family Portrait by the Daughter of Jackie Robinson. "Stealing Home," Cosby continues, "is a book about love and respect written with love and respect." Indeed, in this very important calendar year for the Robinson family, Sharon Robinson has penned an engaging yet fair and understanding reminiscence of her life growing up as the daughter of the courageous, courteous, and remarkably talented athlete and man that was Jackie Robinson.

1997 marks the 50th anniversary of the year that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, becoming the first black player to don a Major League uniform and take the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers of 1947. In recognition of this historically groundbreaking achievement -- accomplished in the face of great prejudice and requiring unwavering courage -- Sharon Robinson's timely memoir becomes all the more significant. Fifty years later, as her father's memory is recalled and the 1997 Major League Baseball season is dedicated to his legacy, the Robinson family has been placed again into the spotlight. It is only appropriate that the release of Stealing Home should coincide with this very American celebration, for it is in her book that Sharon comes to terms with life in the shadow of a father hoisted on the shoulders of celebrity.

Sharon Robinson offers a deeply personal account of her remarkable African-American family, living the 1950s American dream in suburban Connecticut. According to Sharon, Jackie Robinson -- the man, athlete, civil rights activist, husband, and father -- was as admirable off the field as on, dedicated to his wife and determined to give as much as possible in time and attention to his three children, even as his status as a public figure grew larger. Inevitably, however, the pressure of growing up under public scrutiny became too much, compounded by the often painful alienation associated with living in the two racial worlds of black and white. Despite parental efforts to erect a normal family life, it was difficult at times for Sharon and her two brothers; her older brother, Jackie Jr., fought in Vietnam, sought refuge in drugs, and overcame his addictions only to be killed in an auto accident at the age of 24. Her younger brother David found peace with geographical distance, growing coffee in Tanzania and raising a large family of his own. Sharon's defense mechanism manifested itself thorough a number of failed marriages to the wrong types of men. But Stealing Home does not lament, nor does Sharon blame her father and his iconical rise to prominence in history for her and her siblings' difficulties. Rather, it recounts her own route to recovery and success, beginning with an enrollment at Howard University, encouraged by a meaningful career as a midwife, and continuing with the birth of her own son. At once, Stealing Home skates the timeline of a dramatic and pivotal period in recent American history, and also details firsthand the problem of growing up the child of a parent who must be shared with the public.