Good Talk by Mira Jacob – 400 pages
Book Blurb:
“Who taught Michael Jackson to dance?”
“Is that how people really walk on the moon?”
“Is it bad to be brown?”
“Are white people afraid of brown people?”
Like many six-year-olds, Mira Jacob’s half-Jewish, half-Indian son, Z, has questions about everything. At first they are innocuous enough, but as tensions from the 2016 election spread from the media into his own family, they become much, much more complicated. Trying to answer him honestly, Mira has to think back to where she’s gotten her own answers: her most formative conversations about race, color, sexuality, and, of course, love.
“How brown is too brown?”
“Can Indians be racist?”
“What does real love between really different people look like?”
Written with humor and vulnerability, this deeply relatable graphic memoir is a love letter to the art of conversation—and to the hope that hovers in our most difficult questions.
My Review: 4.5 stars
Good Talk is a memoir that was crafted in conversations, think Persepolis, that covers todays issues regarding race and our splintered political climate. This book is a beautiful love letter to Jacob’s son about growing up with mixed race parents. It’s about the author’s immigrant parents and her own American citizenship as she was born in Albuquerque. This scrutinizes how immigrants and their American born children and grandchildren are being affected during Trump’s term and in today’s political climate.
The graphics are amazing; they draw you into her story almost as much as the words do. There’s so much love in this book and the humor is abundant. From scenes about the arranged dates she goes on, her son’s wide-eyed, innocent questions, her mother-in-law’s friends who think she’s the hired help, to the fractured relationships she has due to political differences, this book covers the naked and raw emotions of being in her shoes.
Don’t freak-out at the length of this book. Some of the pages only have five words on it. You can easily read this book in under two hours. Highly recommend for something totally different for all sides of the political arena. However, if you’re someone who won’t read or listen with an open mind about the author’s beliefs, please don’t read this. And kindly note, I say the aforementioned for all books that have a particular partisan leaning, no matter the side.
Quotes I liked:
M: Oh, my g-d. You’re insane.
J: No, I’m the son of a Jewish mother
M: What does that mean?
J: It means I’m good at disappointing people.
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