Loving Day

Uses humor and a well-paced, well-structured plot to explore identity, tribalism, and race in America. Mixed-race Warren Duffy, the narrator, grew up with strong views about his identity as a black man. His teenage daughter comes back into his life after the death of her mother and Warren is responsible for her education. Helping her figure out who she is throws him into a complicated internal and external struggle about what it means to have mixed heritage.

Duffy has a list of other problems besides these, recently divorced, no career prospects and in debt to his ex-wife, and saddled with a large house that is roofless and crumbling. A lot of the humor comes from Duffy's narration in the form of self-deprecating humor and his ability to see the absurdity in the situations he gets into. All the characters in Loving Day are well done but Duffy in particular is relatable, even though he is frequently a jackass.

There's plenty of dramatic plot points and the story ratchets up nicely to a climax that is satisfying and makes good use of all that came before.

I especially appreciated the ability of the writer to show characters' conflicting viewpoints, both internal and with each other, in a way that felt genuine to them. No once did he fall into the trap of preaching or telling readers how to think.

I have waited months to get my hands on this book, since I enjoyed [b:Pym 8501708 Pym Mat Johnson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320435734s/8501708.jpg 13367639] so much a few years ago. So I was prepared for something just plain weird to happen (although it was less weird than I anticipated). There are ghosts and protests and a car explosion and difficult relationships and sneaky principals and quite a bit of hilarity.In a nutshell, the book is first-person p.o.v. told by Warren Duffy, a biracial man who identifies as black, has inherited a mess of a mansion from his dead father, and recently discovered he fathered a child in high school. And then he meets said child and very quickly ends up living with said child. Her name is Tal, and he's half Jewish. Warren is a mess, yes, but I don't get the Warren-hate I've read in reviews. Yep, sometimes he's annoying. But he feels pretty bloody realistic to me. He pines over his friend Tosha, he bemoans his ex-wife, he freaks out over his relationship with his daughter's teacher. He accidentally joins a cult (masquerading as a biracial school) with his daughter. He accidentally starts a protest on Loving Day. He's trying to come to grips with his life failings and his feelings on basically everything about himself whilst trying to learn how to be a father–a proud black father–to a young girl who's wrestling with her own racial identity because she grew up basically racist. And there are ghosts. Which might seem weird in this book, but in the context of other things I've read by Mr Johnson, it's not that weird.I'm sure there are flaws, but I enjoyed the book immensely. It deals with themes to which I can readily relate, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be aware of them. This book was an eye-opener to me. And it made me laugh. I laughed a lot. It's a book about a man who is flawed, deeply unhappy, a bit of a dope, but trying.