When Jill Nelson became the first black woman to write for The Washington Post's prestigious Sunday magazine in 1986, she thought she had entered journalism heaven. Instead, she discovered that life at The Post meant walking "the thin line between Uncle Tomming and Mau-Mauing" - between holding onto her job and preserving her soul.

As Nelson recounts her harrowing four years at The Post - along with her odyssey from a middle-class childhood to near poverty, divorce and single motherhood, flame-out love affairs, and a nervous breakdown - she gives us a scalding expose of the racial, sexual, and corporate politics of one of our most respected newspapers. Volunteer Slavery is a funny, fiercely candid book that names names and takes no prisoners.