Book: Good Talk
Author: Mira Jacob
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 368
Read On: Hardback Edition
How Long it Took Me To Read: 1 day
Plot Summary: Does Donald Trump hate Muslims?'
'Is that how people really walk on the moon?'
'Is it bad to be brown?'
'Are white people afraid of brown people?'
Inspired by her viral BuzzFeed piece '37 Difficult Questions from My Mixed-Raced Son', Mira Jacob responds to: her six-year-old, Zakir, who asks if the new president hates brown boys like him; uncomfortable relationship advice from her parents, who came to the United States from India one month into their arranged marriage; and increasingly fraught exchanges with her Trump-supporting in-laws. Jacob also investigates her own past, including how it felt to be a brown-skinned New Yorker on 9/11. As earnest and moving as they are laugh-out-loud funny, these are the stories that have shaped one life, but will resonate with many others.
Things I Liked:
1. This book had been on my wish list for far too long, ever since it came out sometime last year. I am so glad I finally read it, and I read in one single setting. The premise of the book, the conversation between mother and son about an incredibly relevant, important and sensitive issue of race was handled with such sincerity and feeling that it feels like a masterclass on difficult conversations with kids. If you are a person of colour raising a child in the West, especially America, especially Trump's America this book ought to be a book you read and re-read and highlight portions of.
2. This book while dealing with a heavy and sensitive topic at it's core is still hilarious in parts. I found myself laughing out loud so many times. Especially the parts featuring the shenanigans of the author's parents and her extended family in India.
3. I loved the little and so many backstories that we segue into this book. Stories of the writer's childhood, her parents, visits to India, growing up, how her parents came to be married, relationships, how she met her husband...of these add so much life and colour to this story. Her parents were my favourite people to read about and spend time with, they sound so funny and in so many ways so typical of desi parents.
4. This shows ever so subtly how racism exists and how if you aren't a person of colour, well meaning as you may be or even a staunch ally, you might still be blind to these subtle but just as cruel forms of racisms.
5. All of us like to think, or pretend that racism isn't as bad as it used to be. All of us know better and do better. We don't say certain offensive words. We don't try to stereotype people based on their colour. We have come far...and we have. I am not trying to deny the many ways in which we've (as a society ) have progressed. But reading this book, especially seeing it's back and forth from present day (well 2016) and in the author's childhood of the 80s and 90s America, its obvious that in so many ways things haven't quite changed. Racism, overt or covert still exists.
For example, I doubt that there is any person of Indian origin who hasn't been asked "How is your English so good?" Ugh!
6. This book will break your heart. There were so many parts, where I wanted to stop and give someone, well mainly the author a hug. I think every immigrant must feel at such odds with their identity. The idea of home and where they belong. A country which is theirs in every single way seems to not fully accept them, and the country they are from is often an idea or a place they occasionally visit but possibly never accepts them either. This constant feeling of being the other no matter where they are much be a particular kind of ache.
7. I think everyone who's ever said 'Oh politics isn't personal. It doesn't come between families or friends.' Needs to read this book. Politics and this incessant rhetoric of hate that is all too familiar affects people. It isn't limited to Newsrooms or editorials or discussions. It all trickles down, it makes you, forces to choose sides. It hurts people. 2016 in America showed a lot of people how some of their friends, even family really felt. This book does a great job of showing this and the pain and confusion and heartache it causes.
8. I also loved how this book drove home the point that kids hear, see and grasp everything that's happening around them. And not just what's happening at home, but what's going on in the outside world. The stuff in the News, the screaming headlines, the hysterical panellists on prime time and all the noise in the world, they hear it. They might not fully grasp the meaning behind it all...but they hear and understand more than you think. And just imagine the ugliness they are seeing. The hate and the 'othering' they are being made aware of.
Rating: 4/5
An important, relevant and brilliant book that should be on reading list.
I highly recommend.
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