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the haygoods of columbus: A Family Memoir _________________ By Wil Haygood HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, 358 PAGES the primacy of the autobiographical genre in African-American letters has been persuasively asserted by various scholars. Henry Louis Gates Jr. in particular has argued that black autobiographies are regarded as more significant than black novels because the author's experiences, "however personal, are also automatically historical." This observation at least partly explains the enduring fruitfulness of black memoirists, as well as the consistent public appetite for their output. Black readers, often caught in a current of incomplete and inaccurate stereotypes, hunger for "inside" stories of how some African-Africans have lived and thrived. Not that all of these books are high-minded tales of exemplary lives. Memoirs such as Nathan McCall's "Make Me Wanna Holler" and Kody Scott's "Monster" -- odes to dysfunction and depravity both -- sit on shelves next to less sensational but more substantive offerings, such as Brent Staples' "Parallel Time" and James McBride's "The Color of Water." The "Haygoods of Columbus" fits squarely into the latter category. The author's warmhearted recollections of growing up in Columbus, Ohio, are told in a gentle, straightforward voice. Haygood, a reporter for the Boston Globe, displays his newspaper training in his plainspoken, accessible prose. He was raised in a large, loving family complete with resident eccentrics, high achievers and ne'er-do-wells. A shy, stuttering child, young Haygood discovered solace in friendship, basketball and fishing the Olentangy River. "Days warmly spun into each other," he writes, "and my world seemed as soft as smoke." The most resonant passages are those that describe his grandfather's brothers, hard-working men who said little and had a pronounced intolerance for foolishness. Nonetheless, they enjoyed each other's company and would do anything for a relative. "These were the same men who had rushed to one another's side in times of crisis, the same men who had pummeled men who had abused their daughters," Haygood writes. Unlike many memoirists, Haygood keeps his ego admirably in check, downplaying his many achievements. At times his humility works against him, making it seem as if he couldn't decide how much of his own thoughts to include. For instance, he surely must have more ideas about how he became a prize-winning journalist while his two brothers floundered, balancing jail stints with pimping and other scams. A life spent trodding the path of the straight and narrow is not necessarily a life devoid of drama. Haygood could have exploited the latent dramatic tension in many of the episodes he discusses without distorting their truth. Although his book is ostensibly about the entire Haygood clan, the author has to function as more than a mere record-keeper; his vision is the singular prism through which events must filter. In this regard, Haygood is selfless to a fault. His memoir is indeed a love story, but I couldn't help wishing for just a bit more passion. April 2, 1997 -- Jabari Asim Jabari Asim is an assistant editor of Washington Post Book World. BOOKMARK: http://www.salonmagazine.com/sneaks/sneak.html