A captivating memoir of a biracial boy growing up in Washington, D. C., abandoned by his birth parents, and lovingly raised by a woman with deep emotional scars from her upbringing in the segregated South. The unforgettable memoir Black Sheep opens with a middle-aged Ray Studevent returning to Washington, D. C., to his “momma,” Lemell Studevent. She didn’t give birth to him, but she is the woman who raised him. She is the woman who stood by him through thick and thin. She is the woman who saved his life. But now in her late 80s, Lemell is lost to her Alzheimer’s disease. On most days, she has no idea who she is, no recollection of the remarkable life she has lived. Every once in a while, she remembers small fragments of people, places, and things but she doesn’t know how all of these pieces fit together. At night, she is often haunted by nightmares of growing up in the segregated South, of evil men with blue eyes peering through slits in their hooded robes. Frightened by Ray, this stranger, this white man with his piercing blue eyes, she threatens to shoot him. Trying not to get swept up in his own buried, decades-old feelings of abandonment, Ray knows he must work to regain her trust as he thinks back to how far they both have come. Ray Studevent grew up between two worlds. Born to a white, heroin-addicted mother and black, violently alcoholic father, the odds were stacked against him from day one.