About this item
Echo Brown testifies to the disappointments and triumphs of a Black first-generation college student in this fearless exploration of the first year experience.
There are many watchers and they are always white. That’s the first thing Echo notices as she settles into Dartmouth College. Despite graduating high school in Cleveland as valedictorian, Echo immediately struggles to keep up in demanding classes. Dartmouth made many promises it couldn't keep. The campus is not a rainbow-colored utopia where education lifts every voice. Nor is it a paradise of ideas, an incubator of inclusivity, or even an exciting dating scene. But it might be a portal to different dimensions of time and space—only accessible if Echo accepts her calling as a Chosen One and takes charge of her future by healing her past. This remarkable challenge demands vulnerability, humility, and the conviction to ask for help without sacrificing self-worth.
In mesmerizing personal narrative and magical realism, Echo Brown confronts mental illness, grief, racism, love, friendship, ambition, self-worth, and belonging as they steer the fates of first-generation college students on Dartmouth’s campus. The Chosen One is an unforgettable coming-of-age story that bravely unpacks the double-edged college transition—as both catalyst for old wounds and a fresh start.
About the Author
Echo Unique Ladadrian Brown's early life was marked by the challenges of growing up in poverty. During her senior year of high school, she lived temporarily with an English teacher who recognized her academic potential. Despite this, a guidance counselor discouraged her aspirations for Dartmouth College, citing her background. Undeterred, Brown attended Dartmouth, wrote for the student newspaper, and earned a bachelor's degree in government in 2006. Under the guidance of David Ford at the Marsh theater in San Francisco, Brown developed her one-woman show, "Black Virgins Are Not for Hipsters," which debuted in 2015. The performance addressed various societal and personal challenges, including an incident of racial aggression she faced at Dartmouth. Brown authored two young-adult novels: and which drew upon her experiences and elements of magical realism. At the time of her death, she was working on the novel with actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry, who wrote the screenplay of the Netflix movie of the same name.
