The Opposition…

Loving Day

Mat Johnson

Discussion: 2018-Jan-Feb-Mar

Why we're reading this: February 20, 2018
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Oct 07, 2014 Phyllis | Mocha Drop rated it it was amazing

I loved Loving Day - it is a funny, thought-provoking romp based in the City of Brotherly Love that will definitely promote discussions on race and ethnicity in America. Steeped in satire and stereotypes, the novel’s protagonist, Warren Duffy, is a lovable character who seemingly can not catch a break: he’s recently divorced, unemployed, orphaned, and nearly broke. His Irish American father has recently died and Warren returns to Philadelphia to settle family affairs, including his inheritance: I loved Loving Day - it is a funny, thought-provoking romp based in the City of Brotherly Love that will definitely promote discussions on race and ethnicity in America. Steeped in satire and stereotypes, the novel’s protagonist, Warren Duffy, is a lovable character who seemingly can not catch a break: he’s recently divorced, unemployed, orphaned, and nearly broke. His Irish American father has recently died and Warren returns to Philadelphia to settle family affairs, including his inheritance: his childhood home - a debilitated, haunted historical mansion in the middle of a decaying urban neighborhood. He discovers what initially appears to be crackheads in/around the home, but before he can gain his bearings, he falls unexpectedly into fatherhood, finds love with a beautiful, yet aloof, woman and unknowingly joins a “cult.”

Johnson cleverly creates Warren as a mixed-race man who identifies as African American, yet looks Caucasian. He gives us enough scenarios in first person, so the reader can understand his views, conflicts, and issues which stem from his need to belong and be accepted within a group. Having spent time abroad and marrying a European woman also allows him to compare and contrast European and American racial experiences. Acknowledging the ‘one drop’ rule, he encourages his Jewish daughter (whose recent discovery that her paternal grandmother was African American) to embrace all aspects of her ethnicity although he fails to fully do so himself. The result is enrolling her into the Melance School - a private school focusing on the needs and education of mixed race children. Initially, it sounds great: it encourages its members to acknowledge all aspects of their heritage and debunk conventional (and limited) rules regarding American race categories. He soons finds that traditional American views clash with such thinking. Conflicts arise and bring the novel to an appropriately explosive, yet hilarious, climax ironically on Loving Day - an annual June 12 celebration which recognizes the historic Supreme Court decision sparked by the Mildred and Richard Loving case which eventually deemed miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

It’s a fresh, smart, entertaining view on a controversial subject. It would be a great read for book clubs. ...more

20 likes · Like · see review

May 25, 2015 Ezra rated it really liked it

Shelves: loc-kindle, identity-race, author-male, read-in-2016, mixed-race

A satirical jab at identity. Like so main character and many supporting ones, I am mixed. Am I black? According to One Drop laws, absolutely yes. According to some black people, yes. According to other black people, not enough. There are similar mixed messages from other peoples. Plenty think I am from the Middle East, Latin America, India, or other location where there people with brown skin. A reason why I like the term Mixed-Race is because it implies all mixed up and jumbled to an incoherent ...more

2 likes · Like · see review