The bestselling author delves into his past and discovers the
inspiring story of his grandmother's extraordinary life
She was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College
and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as
one could imagine in New York of the 1930s--and without the strategy she
devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would
never have been convicted. When special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey
selected twenty lawyers to help him clean up the city's underworld, she
was the only member of his team who was not a white male.
Eunice Hunton Carter, Stephen Carter's grandmother, was raised in a
world of stultifying expectations about race and gender, yet by the
1940s, her professional and political successes had made her one of the
most famous black women in America. But her triumphs were shadowed by
prejudice and tragedy. Greatly complicating her rise was her difficult
relationship with her younger brother, Alphaeus, an avowed Communist
who--together with his friend Dashiell Hammett--would go to prison
during the McCarthy era. Yet she remained unbowed.
Moving, haunting, and as fast-paced as a novel, Invisible tells the
true story of a woman who often found her path blocked by the social and
political expectations of her time. But Eunice Carter never accepted
defeat, and thanks to her grandson's remarkable book, her long forgotten
story is once again visible.