How I Became Hettie Jones

How did Hettie Cohen become Hettie Jones? By marrying the poet LeRoi Jones, who later marked his own transformation by changing his name to Amiri Baraka and leaving his mixed-race family behind. That's the supposed scandal of her story—which she's thoughtful and tender about—but what will keep you reading is Hettie herself, both her bold, youthful self and her wise reflection when writing three decades later. It may have taken her a long time to find her voice in the midst of the mostly male cacophony of the Beats, but she found it here, with precision insights and evocative details about youthful bohemia that make her memoir every bit the equal of Patti Smith's Just Kids.