The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

by Gabrielle Zevin

Once, someone had asked A.J. if Maya was his. “You’re both black but not the same kind of black.” Maya remembers this because the remark had made A.J. use a tone of voice she had never heard him use with a customer. “What is the same kind of black?” A.J. had asked. “No, I didn’t mean to offend you,” the person had said and then the flip flops had backed their way to the door, leaving without making a purchase. What is “the same kind of black”? She looks at her hands and wonders.

There are a handful of explicit references to race in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. I am a biracial East Asian American. A.J. Fikry is a biracial Southeast Asian American. Maya is a biracial African American. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is not about race except insofar as everything I write is from the POV of a biracial person. And indeed, so much of A.J.'s alienation and his retreat into novels stems from feeling separate from the people around him. I am the same as A.J. in this respect. Is this race, or is this just A.J.'s nature? Am I an introvert because of the way people respond to me as a POC, or would I have been an introvert even if I were not a POC? The customer is being curious, if awkward, when she phrases the question that way. She's trying to say, "You don't look related, but clearly this little girl is behaving as if you are her father -- so what exactly is your relation?" The customer doesn't necessarily have bad intentions, but A.J. takes the question and its phrasing to be racist, intrusive, and offensive. He takes it to mean, "You two don't look like you belong together." As a biracial person, I have spent much of my life being asked the question WHAT ARE YOU, and so I am quite familiar with the many ways this question can be put.