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A review by jeremychiasson
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
5.0
This was such a special read—an inventive, mixed media graphic memoir that was funny, heartbreaking, and changed the way I thought about the world! I can’t think of much more I would want from a book.
It’s entitled “Good Talk”, because the autobiographical narrative is structured around the author’s conversations about race with her 6 year old, mixed race son. As mother and son walk around the city, ride the bus, go trick-or-treating, the little guy raises some very tricky questions about race, and then the author explores and wrestles with these questions, drawing on her lived experiences as a person of colour living in America.
What I loved about this book is that Jacobs doesn’t find a lot of easy answers—she explores such a wide range of topics with depth and nuance without ever making the reader feel bogged down. Good Talk is always engaging, always empathetic, and even as Jacobs finds answers, she never stops asking questions. I’m not sure where she finds the patience and empathy, tbh-- the never-ending deluge of micro-aggressions exhausted this white boy, and I was only reading about it.
I learned a lot of new things, and even things I thought I understood were cast in a different light when told from the POV of someone who isn’t white. I also just genuinely found the book entertaining—her cringey sexual encounters, getting stoned with her dad (her dad was so funny!), her son being obsessed with Michael Jackson—it was all perfect.
I’m so grateful Jacobs took the time to write this. “Good Talk” is easily the best book I’ve read since maybe 2019.
It’s entitled “Good Talk”, because the autobiographical narrative is structured around the author’s conversations about race with her 6 year old, mixed race son. As mother and son walk around the city, ride the bus, go trick-or-treating, the little guy raises some very tricky questions about race, and then the author explores and wrestles with these questions, drawing on her lived experiences as a person of colour living in America.
What I loved about this book is that Jacobs doesn’t find a lot of easy answers—she explores such a wide range of topics with depth and nuance without ever making the reader feel bogged down. Good Talk is always engaging, always empathetic, and even as Jacobs finds answers, she never stops asking questions. I’m not sure where she finds the patience and empathy, tbh-- the never-ending deluge of micro-aggressions exhausted this white boy, and I was only reading about it.
I learned a lot of new things, and even things I thought I understood were cast in a different light when told from the POV of someone who isn’t white. I also just genuinely found the book entertaining—her cringey sexual encounters, getting stoned with her dad (her dad was so funny!), her son being obsessed with Michael Jackson—it was all perfect.
I’m so grateful Jacobs took the time to write this. “Good Talk” is easily the best book I’ve read since maybe 2019.