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diyashasen 's review for:
Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir
by Rebecca Carroll
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Agh, Rebecca Carroll—you really had me in the first half! But much like a TV show at risk of cancellation, the last half of this memoir was full of a number of ‘storylines’ that often went unexplored and felt unnecessarily rushed. But when she was really in her groove, Carroll does a fantastic job in Surviving the White Gaze. Much like (my absolute favourite memoir of all time) Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me, she manages to explore the psychological tension of her relationship with her mother (and her adoptive family and white peers) while simultaneously creating an incredibly vivid backdrop. When she explores her adolescent years, Caroll is at her peak—subtly espousing Black Feminist Thought through her analyses of desirability politics, the nuclear family, and motherhood.
Her college years, however, become a bit of a muddle to wade through. While I appreciated her discussions of the complicated dynamics in both her romantic/sexual and familial relationships, the picture felt very incomplete. I do think it’s important to acknowledge that this story is a.) very painful to share and b.) there are limits to how, I, a non-Black person can criticize her framing of this story. But, I think it’s important to note that there are some major flaws in this structure. While life cannot have neat endings—and memoirs certainly don’t need to, there was little to no resolution to any of the pain Carroll constantly lived through. This doesn’t mean she needs to fabricate a ‘happy ending’ (because her lived experience is intrinsic to who she is), but I didn’t even understand where she stood with half the people in her life—which was the epicenter of the memoir.
With all that being said, Carroll is a phenomenal writer. While the latter half of this book was not to my taste, after finishing the memoir, I started looking into her articles. And wow, I want to write just like her when I grow up.
Her college years, however, become a bit of a muddle to wade through. While I appreciated her discussions of the complicated dynamics in both her romantic/sexual and familial relationships, the picture felt very incomplete. I do think it’s important to acknowledge that this story is a.) very painful to share and b.) there are limits to how, I, a non-Black person can criticize her framing of this story. But, I think it’s important to note that there are some major flaws in this structure. While life cannot have neat endings—and memoirs certainly don’t need to, there was little to no resolution to any of the pain Carroll constantly lived through. This doesn’t mean she needs to fabricate a ‘happy ending’ (because her lived experience is intrinsic to who she is), but I didn’t even understand where she stood with half the people in her life—which was the epicenter of the memoir.
With all that being said, Carroll is a phenomenal writer. While the latter half of this book was not to my taste, after finishing the memoir, I started looking into her articles. And wow, I want to write just like her when I grow up.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Sexual assault