LeVar Burton’s forthcoming memoir, “Take My Word for It,” examines the childhood absence of his father, the influence of his mother and the career that made him known to audiences through Roots, Reading Rainbow and Star Trek: The Next Generation, per parade.com.
The 352-page book, written with Tracey Michael Lewis-Giggetts, is published by Random House and set for a November 10 release .
Burton’s parents separated when he was 11. In interviews promoting the memoir, the actor said he had no contact with his father for about a decade, until Roots was released in 1977.
The book traces his upbringing in 1960s Sacramento, where he says strong women helped fill the space left by his absent father. Burton writes that his mother, a high-school English teacher and the first member of her family to graduate from university, was central to his love of reading.
“I am who I am because of my mother. Full stop,” Burton writes in the memoir, according to material cited by /parade.com.
“Take My Word for It” also follows Burton’s professional path. He left university at 19 to play Kunta Kinte in the 1977 miniseries Roots, later hosted Reading Rainbow for 23 years and played engineer Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation from 1987 to 1994.
Burton has described the span of those roles as an unusually broad portrayal of Black American life. “I have been able to portray the Black experience in America,” he told AARP, “from our enslavement to space flight.”
The memoir also addresses mental illness and Burton’s work as a literacy advocate, according to The Week.
Burton said his father died recently and that their relationship had been complex. “My father passed recently. We had a pretty complex relationship,” he told AARP. “When the news came, I felt complete.”
Early reviews have been positive. Time described the book as a “compassionate, vulnerable memoir,” while Kirkus Reviews called it “a disarmingly candid memoir of a lifelong project of personal growth”.
Burton, 69, has been a prominent figure in American television and children’s literacy for nearly five decades. His memoir arrives as he reflects publicly on both the family experiences that shaped him and the cultural impact of the roles that defined his career.
•Featured image: LeVar Burton/Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images