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A review by readingwithhippos
When I Was White: A Memoir by Sarah Valentine
3.0
What a frustrating book. Right off the bat, you should know Valentine doesn't meet or even conclusively identify her biological father. I know life doesn't always wrap up neatly the way fiction does, but to write this memoir without any kind of closure on the question of her biological father's identity seems...questionable? Although now that I've said that, I'm realizing that if I'm this uncomfortable as a disinterested reader, what must it feel like to be Valentine and live with that ambiguity your whole life? So maybe, upon reflection, that's what she was going for.
Still, many of the details that were included felt extraneous. Her rapturous description of her wedding, for example, was totally over the top--and as she admits a few chapters later, the marriage didn't last, so did we really need to know what color her bridesmaids' dresses were? And the pages and pages recounting philosophical discussions with friends in college--we get it, you were an insufferable pseudo-intellectual masking insecurity, don't make me sit in the Denny's booth with you and relive the whole thing.
This memoir is at its best when the author is recounting and analyzing the many conversations she had with her mother over the years, trying to get at the truth of how she was conceived. Her mother is a deeply flawed but totally fascinating person--I was analyzing every word out of her mouth right along with Valentine, putting on my deerstalker cap and going all armchair detective. Valentine has clearly done a lot of emotional work to process her own feelings, and while she can't forgive or excuse her mother's actions, she also seems to understand her mother surprisingly well.
Valentine also reflects meaningfully on her experience of "coming out as black," growing to understand her biracial identity, and the privilege inherent in white people's ignoring race or pretending it doesn't matter. So I suppose my recommendation is to read this book with the goal of learning about how racial identity is constructed and how it feels to be a biracial person, rather than reading it to "solve the mystery."
Still, many of the details that were included felt extraneous. Her rapturous description of her wedding, for example, was totally over the top--and as she admits a few chapters later, the marriage didn't last, so did we really need to know what color her bridesmaids' dresses were? And the pages and pages recounting philosophical discussions with friends in college--we get it, you were an insufferable pseudo-intellectual masking insecurity, don't make me sit in the Denny's booth with you and relive the whole thing.
This memoir is at its best when the author is recounting and analyzing the many conversations she had with her mother over the years, trying to get at the truth of how she was conceived. Her mother is a deeply flawed but totally fascinating person--I was analyzing every word out of her mouth right along with Valentine, putting on my deerstalker cap and going all armchair detective. Valentine has clearly done a lot of emotional work to process her own feelings, and while she can't forgive or excuse her mother's actions, she also seems to understand her mother surprisingly well.
Valentine also reflects meaningfully on her experience of "coming out as black," growing to understand her biracial identity, and the privilege inherent in white people's ignoring race or pretending it doesn't matter. So I suppose my recommendation is to read this book with the goal of learning about how racial identity is constructed and how it feels to be a biracial person, rather than reading it to "solve the mystery."