Writer Finds Beginning in an Ending
Second Memoir Tells Story Of Author's Transformation

By Lisa Frazier Page
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 4, 2007

Her first memoir about growing up as an African American Muslim had not been published yet when the sequel took root.

An editor unknowingly played a part, chopping off the last chapter of the initial manuscript with a note: This is an entirely different story.

Indeed, it was.

After a frustrating decade of trying to finish her story and find a publisher, Sonsyrea Tate found help from what might seem an unlikely source -- Zane, a Prince George's County writer who has sold millions of copies of her erotic fiction about African Americans. Also the publisher of Strebor Books International, which has a publishing and distribution deal with Simon & Schuster's Atria Books, Zane ushered into print Tate's new memoir, "Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam."

"It's definitely a story of discovering who you are and learning to love who you discover without shame, without blame," said Tate, 41, who lives in Anne Arundel County.

Tate is among the authors scheduled to read or discuss their works at the Capital Book Fest from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Borders Books, 931-A Capital Centre Blvd., Largo. In past years, the free event has drawn more than 2,500 authors and audience members. Her appearance is scheduled for 11:45 a.m.

In her first book, "Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam," published in 1997, Tate focused on her adolescence in Northeast Washington in an African American Muslim family full of love, contradictions and hypocrisy. The book explores the rigorous rituals of the religion and shows a young Sonsyrea beginning to question theology and a belief system that trained women to be caretakers, deferential to men and void of professional ambitions.

That piece of her story wasn't nearly the half of it.

Tate said she realizes now that she tried to cram too much into what would have been the final chapter of her first book: the story of her first love, troubled young marriage, divorce and break from her religion. Thanks to the astute editor (and two of her sisters, who kept chiding her to "tell the truth"), she knew she had another book inside her. But sorting through all the pain and finding the words would take years.

Hoping for a breakthrough, Tate enrolled in a workshop taught by Marita Golden, a writer she admires. One day, Golden instructed the class to finish this thought: "The story I must tell in order to be transformed is. . . ."

The words began to flow.

"The story I must tell in order to be transformed is the story of my coming out -- coming out of Islam, out of my parents' house, out of traditional choices, out of conventional thinking -- in a way, out of my mind," Tate wrote.

And that's where the sequel picks up. At 18, she meets and marries the guy next door, an ex-convict who had converted to Islam in prison, who cheats on her, rapes her, gets a girlfriend pregnant and winds up back in prison.

Tate becomes pregnant and, in a fierce attempt to take charge of her future, has an abortion. She parties a bit and explores casual sex.

And somehow she stays focused on her dream of becoming a journalist as she redefines herself and her spirituality and steps completely out of the Muslim religion she had known.

Literary agents and book publishers weren't easily convinced of the book's mass appeal. It was self-aggrandizing, some said. Nobody is buying memoirs, others said. But Tate kept digging and writing. She laid it all out there, raw as it is in parts, without blinking or blushing.

Zane was no fool.

Tate, editor of the Washington Informer, said she called Zane strictly for business reasons one day but realized during the conversation that Zane's imprint might be a perfect fit for her memoir. "Zane is telling stories that had not been told before," Tate said. "I didn't want to pander to people's interest in sex. On the other hand, if it gets them to pick it up and read it and reflect on it and act, then it's worth it."

Zane said she was fascinated by the concept of the book. "I thought it was a book that needed to be out there because I knew there were other women dealing with the same situation," she said.

The crowd's reaction to Tate's story at a book festival in Harlem this summer showed its potential impact, Zane said. "People were immediately drawn to the power of what she had to say and sought her out afterward," she said.

Tate, who got married in December and goes by Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery, said she was motivated in part by a desire to explain herself (her family always thought of her as the "good girl") and her two most outwardly rebellious sisters (she has four sisters and four brothers; a fifth brother died) to the older generations of women in her family.

"I wanted to explain that even though the best intentions were made -- you raised us with love, you raised us with faith -- we ended up some confused little rascals," she said. "We ended up some angry little rascals. We either deal with this now, or pay later. I chose to deal with it now."