Fresh Air

When Asher was five, living with her family in London, her mother got a call informing her that her husband and son, who were on a road trip in Nigeria, their ancestral home, had been in a terrible accident. She was told her husband or her son had survived, but the caller didn't know which. That story opens Asher's new memoir, Where the Children Take Us, which is largely about her mother's remarkable life – surviving poverty, genocide and civil war in Nigeria, then raising four children in a struggling neighborhood in London, and giving them the skills, resilience and determination to be successful in life. Asher made it in TV news. Her brother, Chiwetel Ejiofor, is an award-winning actor.

Maureen Corrigan reviews Tasha, novelist Brian Morris's memoir about his smart, difficult and funny mother.