Finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature
Finalist for a 2018 Southern Book Prize for Biography and History
"An absolute must-read" – Shondaland
“[Rabbit] tells how it went down with brutal honesty and outrageous humor” – New York Times
“I know a lot of people think they know what it’s like to grow up in the hood. Like maybe they watched a couple of seasons of The Wire and they got the shit all figured out. But TV doesn’t tell the whole story.” – Ms. Pat
They called her Rabbit.
Patricia Williams (aka Ms. Pat) was born and raised in Atlanta at the height of the crack epidemic. One of five children, Pat watched as her mother struggled to get by on charity, cons, and petty crimes. At age seven, Pat was taught to roll drunks for money. At twelve, she was targeted for sex by a man eight years her senior. By thirteen, she was pregnant. By fifteen, Pat was a mother of two.
Alone at sixteen, this single teen mom was determined to make a better life for her children. But with no job skills and an eighth-grade education, her options were limited. She learned quickly that hustling and humor were the only tools she had to survive. Rabbit is an unflinching and inspiring true story of cinematic scope and unexpected humor. With wisdom and humor, Pat gives us a rare glimpse of what it’s really like to be a black mom in America.
How does a girl who became a mother of two by fifteen, with only an eighth-grade education, find the strength not only to survive the crack epidemic but to build a new life?
- Brutal Honesty: From watching her alcoholic mother’s petty crimes to her own time selling crack, Ms. Pat lays out the unflinching reality of her past with no filter.
- Outrageous Humor: Discover the comedy that became a survival tool, finding laughs in the darkest situations and turning a life of pain into a career on stage.
- A Story of Resilience: Shot twice, a mother at thirteen, and facing a world of limited options, this is the story of a woman who refused to be a victim of her circumstances.
- From the Hood to the Suburbs: Follow Ms. Pat’s improbable path from the inner city of Atlanta to a six-bedroom house in Indianapolis and a new life she built for her family.
