Caucasia
Ratings4
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings4
Average rating4.3
Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston. The sisters are so close that they speak their own language, yet Birdie, with her light skin and straight hair, is often mistaken for white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at school. Despite their differences, Cole is Birdie’s confidant, her protector, the mirror by which she understands herself. Then their parents’ marriage collapses. One night Birdie watches her father and his new girlfriend drive away with Cole. Soon Birdie and her mother are on the road as well, drifting across the country in search of a new home. But for Birdie, home will always be Cole. Haunted by the loss of her sister, she sets out a desperate search for the family that left her behind.
A modern classic, Caucasia is at once a powerful coming of age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America.
Reviews with the most likes.
This emotional novel tells the story of an interracial family from the perspective of Birdie Lee, the light skinned, straight haired daughter of Sandra Lodge Lee, a white woman who comes from an old Boston "blueblood" family, and Deck Lee, a Black man who went to college at Harvard. Birdie's older sister, Cole (Colette), has much darker skin and tightly curled hair, and the two sisters experience different treatment from the people in their lives based on how they look. Early in the book, the girls' parents split up. Sandra is involved in political activism that Deck thinks is too risky. Eventually, Sandra decides she needs to flee Boston and go into hiding because of her political activities, so the girls are separated. Cole goes with Deck and his Black girlfriend Carmen to Brazil, and Birdie goes on the run with Sandra. Along the way she learns that she will present herself as a white Jewish girl as part of her mother's disguise, since the authorities will be looking for a white woman with a Black daughter.
This is an emotional, reflective novel, but it is also a story well told. Sandra and Deck Lee are likeable people with their own complicated histories and motives, but the consequences of their choices for their daughters are profound.
