Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins: How Family Stories Shape Us - Softcover

Elizabeth Stone is professor of English, Communication, and Media Studies at Fordham University and author of The Hunter College Campus Schools for the Gifted and A Boy I Once Knew: What a Teacher Learned from her Student.

“This sparkling book is a gift to families and all who work with them.  . . . Readers will be inspired to search their own intergenerational family myths and narratives, coming away with a clearer sense of self and enhanced sympathy for family members.”

—Evan Imber-Black, author of The Secret Life of Families and director, Center for Families and Health, Ackerman Institute for the Family

“This book is a continuing inspiration to those of us who are professional storytellers. The wisdom in the stories, along with Elizabeth Stone’s suggestions, are a valuable guide to all of us.”

—Peninnah Schram, associate professor of speech and drama, Stern College, Yeshiva University and author, Jewish Stories One Generation Tells Another

“Reading this book again, I am reminded of how important it is to our understanding of family enterprises. Families who own assets together will find the family stories regarding money, self worth, and freedom nothing short of enlightening.”

—Fredda Herz Brown, managing partner, The Metropolitan Group and editor of Reweaving the Family Tapestry

“[C]harming and appealing because of Stone’s delicate sensitivity, her wonder over the way an entire family ethos can be created out of stories ‘as invisible as air, as weightless as dreams.’”

—Alex Raskin, Los AngelesTimes

“One of the marks of a book’s private success for me is its ability to distract me from itself. I enjoy reading material that provokes daydream, pushing me outward from a statement to explore my own experience as it supports or denies what I’ve just read. . . . Black Sheep and Kissing Cousins encourages just this kind of desultory and reflexive reading.”

—Nancy Mairs, Women’s Review of Books

“Elizabeth Stone describes how the stories families tell assign roles to each person, and how those roles can become self-fulfilling prophecies.”

—Harriet Brown, The New York Times