James McBride

In the mid-1990s, writer James McBride scored a bestseller with "The Color of Water," his memoir of growing up the black son of a white mother in America.

Now a black son of a white mother may be on his way to the White House, and James McBride is out with a hot new novel set in the root soil of America's black-white story: American slavery.

But like his own story, this telling is more complicated than our quick takes on history typically allow. The roots, and moral lessons, are tangled.

This hour, On Point: novelist James McBride and the tangled tale of a runaway slave.Guest:

James McBride, a writer and musician, is author of the new novel, "Song Yet Sung." He also wrote the bestselling 1997 memoir, "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother."