[Birthday] Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob - 4 stars

[Pam]

This graphic memoir about a mother trying to navigate her young son's questions about race ends with her epiphany that the difficulties she's having coming up with the right answers aren't her fault. Rather than a failure in parenting ability, it's a failure of society that she can't talk or explain away, no matter how hard she tries, and that felt like a punch in the heart. (In a good way??) This was really powerful in an incredibly low-key way, and I loved it.

The author is Indian-American, married to a white man, and she ponders her childhood in New Mexico and the subtle (and not so subtle) forms of racism she's faced from both Americans and Indians -- and accidentally perpetrated a time or two on her own -- while trying to figure out how to effectively answer her son's questions without scaring him or wandering into territory she feels he's not ready for at such a young age. And she manages to do all this in an entertaining, often funny way.

Then Trump happens, and she and her husband have to figure out how to handle his Republican parents. Something I know a lot of liberals can relate to, but it takes on a whole new meaning when race and grandchildren are involved.

Really successful for a graphic novel that doesn't actually have any answers. Highly recommended.