Good Talk

I just stumbled upon this book on Twitter when the author Mira shared a couple of illustrations from the graphic novel about Indian aunties and I couldn't stop laughing and I decided that I had to read it. However, I ended up not finding the graphic novel at my library and had to listen to the audiobook which turned out to be totally unexpected and wonderful in its own way.

This memoir is completely heartfelt, witty and hilarious while tackling very complex issues surrounding race in the America of the current president. The author's own growing up timeline felt familiar, irrespective of the fact that I grew up in India. The relationship she shared with her parents and relatives, their conversations and ideas and values all felt so relatable (not always in a good way though). When she talks about the colorism that she faced in India due to being darker toned than her parents and brother, it hit me very hard. Just like her, I too heard a lot growing up that my parents were going to have a tough time finding a guy for me because I wasn't as fair as I used to be when I was a child. As a young well educated woman, I was constantly told I shouldn't want to marry an equally highly educated man because neither was I very pretty nor was I rich enough to harbor such dreams. This whole idea of reducing a woman's self worth to the color of her skin is still far too common in India even years after when the author's own story takes place.

The other thing the author talks about is the othering she felt both while trying to date (as a bisexual woman of color) and as an aspiring author trying to make it. There are numerous occasions in the story where she encounters little statements or micro aggressions by white people, who are completely tone deaf and clueless as to how racist they come across. As an author, she has to explain to a radio producer that referring to her characters as Asian Indian instead of East Indian just so that Americans can understand it better is so darn ignorant. And all these little things just add up and go on and the author (like many other POC) doesn't confront or argue with these people because that will not change anything. There is a frustration that is reflected in the author's narration that I totally empathized with because it's a reality for many of us.

And the most important and also the most difficult and heartbreaking parts of the book were her conversations with her six year old biracial son. He is an inquisitive little child always asking her lots of questions, which she wants to answer honestly - until he starts listening to the 2016 election campaign rhetoric on the news and wants to know if Trump hates him, if his white Jewish dad will have to give him and his mom up if Trump wins the election and has lots of questions about racism and prejudice and more other issues that affect him profoundly - she doesn't know how to answer them all in a way he can understand, but can't avoid them either because they will affect his daily life. When Mira has to explain to him that his Trump supporting republican grandparents still love him, he is truly confused and wants to beg them not to vote for him and it broke her heart along with mine. The line “sometimes the people who love you will choose a world that doesn't” is still haunting me hours after finishing the book. While she spent the election night with her husband and their friends lamenting on the result (and also not feeling completely surprised by it), I was all alone in my home reeling with what I was seeing on tv - but the thoughts that were running through our head were the same. These conversations that she has with her kid and everything she is grappling with about her son's future, are the same I think about when I envision having a kid who will probably be born American, but will ultimately always be defined by their skin color.

I have read in other reviews that the author's illustration style is amazing but the full cast audio (with music and situational background score) is absolutely spectacular and I would highly recommend this format too. This book is very thought provoking and funny and also sad and I think POC readers will find some very relatable experiences in it. Thats not to say others won't, but I feel people who have lived these experiences will have a unique appreciation for this book.

At first I was really surprised by the artistic direction but I forgot about it quickly.
Mira Jacob is telling her story, and with this story is trying to make her son ( and the reader) understand about racism and how it feels like to be a daughter of Indian immigrants in America.
She goes throught story about her past and challenge of her present.
It made me sad. It made me angry. And I still know that I will never truly understand the meaning of her story. But at least I am a bit more educated now.
Thank you.

A graphic novel/memoir about an East Indian American who shares what it is like to be a dark-skinned American of Indian descent in today's America, in a family with close ties to family living in India, as a mother of a mixed-race son, and wife of a Jewish white man with conservative parents in Florida. Whew - sounds like a lot of heavy stuff, but it was so well done - the author shared her story with humor and truth. I read this in two large gulps over two days, but don't let that fool you - this will stay with me. There were multiple passages I marked to copy down into my book journal. I had chills while reading her story of 9/11, when she witnessed the planes hitting the towers from lower Manhattan. I laughed with her crazy family stories and dating stories, and felt her sadness and frustration with her experiences with racism. It's a memoir of a woman trying to may her way, and finding the best way for her family and her child. I loved it.

A quick read because of the graphic novel format. I listened to an interview with Mira Jacobs, so I felt like I already knew the plot lines when I got to them, but it was still great. A unique, visual way to see someone else's perspective through their eyes. Her son was the catalyst for the book, but it's more about her experiences.

The way it ended made me want a resolution, selfishly, for advice on how her family handled a subject many of us are currently walking through in real time with her. It actually seemed a fitting way to end, but with a hopeful quality about it.

What is it like to have children? What, in particular, is it like to have an intelligent thoughtful eight-year-old child who asks insightful difficult questions about the hate-filled world he sees every day? What is it like too be an intelligent decent parent having to explain to this child why monsters sometime win? I am infinitely thankful to not know, that I'll never know; but Mira Jacob made me feel just the smallest bit of what it must be like, and I cried much of the way through.

This is a beautiful work. Tender, considerate, vulnerable; painful but also warm and funny and moving. Even, dare I say, hopeful. (But shhh. Not out loud.)

Sometimes, you don't know how confused you are about something important until you try explaiing it to someone else.

WHAT'S GOOD TALK ABOUT?

It's 2014 when the book opens, Mira Jacob's son Z is six and he's asking Mom a lot of questions (because he's six). They start off talking about Michael Jackson—Z is obsessed with him. Z eventually asks about Jackson's skin color—Z is half-Jewish, half-Indian and has several questions about skin color that stem from this (and likely predate this, but what do I know) which leads to questions about race, race relations, and what he sees on the news. Jacob's committed to being open and honest with Z, but struggles knowing how much she should say—and how optimistic she should be about the state of the US in terms of Ferguson, MO, and a lot of the rhetoric surrounding the 2016 elections.

The memoir comes in as Jacob recounts several scenes from her childhood/young adulthood that shaped her. Her parents immigrated from India in the 60s (a week before MLK was assassinated) and took up residence in Albuquerque. We get a few scenes from her childhood and teen years before moving to adulthood, dealing with misunderstandings, assumptions, and unintentional rudeness based on her background. Eventually, she finds herself in New York City trying to make it as a freelance writer and dating. This is all told with frankness and humor. The kind of humor that reminded me of Amber Ruffin/Lacey Lamar's You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey from last year—you laugh so you don't have to cry.

THE ART

I really don't know how to describe the art here, but this is a graphic memoir, so it's a major component of the book. So I'd better try.

I saw someone on Goodreads use the term "mixed media," and without researching it, I think it's close enough to use as a description (maybe not technically right?). Please note that this is me trying to describe it, not being dismissive as it may sound. It's like Jacob drew nice, but not fantastic, paper dolls of each character (some at different ages, others static) and put them on top of photographs or drawings of various locations and added speech bubbles.

I just saw that she has an Instagram account that uses images from the book (in addition to the regular Instagram stuff), so I figure I can "quote" something to show what I'm talking about:

This is nowhere near the kind of art that appeals to me in graphic novels/memoirs etc. Give me something dynamic, something with some flair, something I can bask in. But...this really worked for me. It helped give this a "documentary" kind of feel (don't ask me to explain this, but it struck me that way). This isn't about the glitz or the pictures jumping off of the page, it's about a woman having tricky conversations with her loved ones—and complete strangers, sometimes. The focus is on the words, but the images help carry you along.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT GOOD TALK?

Sometimes, you go along with it and pretend nothing happened. Sometimes, you hold your breath until the feeling of wanting to believed passes. Sometimes, you weigh explaining against staying quiet and know they're both just different kinds of heavy. Sometimes, when it's your mother-in-law—a woman you started calling Mom the day you got engaged because you admired the ferocity with which she loved her children, and maybe even wanted some of it for yourself—you look ahead and see all the years of birthdays and graduations and weddings that will be shadowed by things that she can't imagine about your life. Sometimes, you can't hold your breath long enough.

I typed "I really enjoyed this book", but I'm not sure that's the appropriate response. I don't know that supposed to enjoy this—but her style and humor are really engaging and there's enough hope in there that it feels natural to say. I feel okay saying that this is a good read—it'll make you think, it might make you grin, and it'll definitely make you wince.

Right away, when Jacob goes to visit families in India and they tell her that her skin tone (darker than her parents' or her brother's) marks her out as not as attractive or a good prospect for marriage, you can tell she will pull no punches. And you can understand why she wouldn't want to. It's one of the many, many things that guys like me on Scalzi's Lowest Difficulty Setting don't have to think of. There are many sections of the book that hit the same way—like the chapter where she talks about being mistaken for "the help" at a party her mother-in-law was hosting. The above quotation is part of that—she decides mid-way through the conversation that she's not going to try to explain what happened, nor argue about it. Constantly having to explain your experiences—your life—to people who don't get it has to be a kind of exhausting that I can't imagine.

But there's a lot of humor and hope here, too—not all of it at the expense of clueless white folk saying dumb things. There's the chapter about getting her dad to use marijuana to help the pain of his cancer treatment, for example. It's funny and heart-warming. Until he dies, of course, reminding you that this isn't that the hope is tinged with reality.

I really recommend this book—it's a deceptively easy read, and you shouldn't let the style or format fool you into racing through it. There's a lot to chew on, a lot to reflect on—and a perspective that should be listened to. Even if you can't relate to her struggles, can't agree with her politics, and find the whole discussion unsettling. Maybe especially then.

These were ubiquitous in my internet timeline, early comics appearing in Buzzfeed relating Mira Jacob's son's early obsession with Michael Jackson. It's in that low-fi, consumable, internet meme visual style that's immediately recognizable and dying to be shared. Jacob's paper cutouts look out at the reader in a stunned, apathetically imploring, semi-ironic way that immediately speaks to my tiny GenX heart. There was no way I wasn't going to eventually snatch this one up.

It's heartfelt, wry and piercingly of the moment. Raising a bi-racial boy, contending with Trump voting in-laws, rich white lady micro-aggressions, fluid sexuality, being brown post 9/11 and Michael Jackson. Mira Jacobs is the hilariously sane person you need in your life to call up for drinks to commiserate over our current dumpster fire moment, feel righteous indignation at the world's injustices, and somehow leave with a tiny bit of hope in your heart.

Alternately quite funny and nearly heartbreaking, this unique nonfiction graphic novel memoir should be required reading. Somehow, trying to explain racism to a child makes it even more unsettling. Mira Jacob does the best work I've seen drawing her reader into an experience that is potentially completely foreign. Definitely highly recommended.