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A review by saidtheraina
Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White by Lila Quintero Weaver
5.0
When I picked up this book, I was initially skeptical.
It's a paperback published by a university press, the cover design isn't awesome, and it's a graphic novel memoir about the southern civil rights movement from the perspective of someone who 1. has never published anything - much less a graphic novel - before, and 2. isn't Black.
Wow, were those first impressions offbase.
Quintero Weaver tells the story of her childhood immigration to Marion, Alabama from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She talks, directly, about what it was like to be a part of the only (apparent) non-white, non-black family in her community. She discusses the different effects emigration and immigration had on her and each of her sisters (as the family moved back and forth from Argentina to the United States, some of the siblings were born in South America, and others in North America). And then, she talks about what it was like to live a block away on the night that Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed during a peaceful voting rights march in 1965.
It's a chilling story.
But a story in context.
This is a story that has stuck with me - that I've found myself thinking about afterwards. As I read, I found myself grabbing paper and a pen to notate sections I wanted to remember.
For instance, page 66, Quintero Weaver describes how reading her older sister's collection of books enriched her personal education. In addition to depicting the impact of literacy, for me, it drew forth the particular quality of grabbing a print book off a shelf and reading it in secret. That experience is hard to duplicate in digital form.
On page 81, she says "Somehow daddy lacked the self-consciousness that usually comes with outsider status." This made me wonder if he truly lacked that self-consciousness, or if he refused it. Made me wonder if people attain that self-consciousness quality based on personality type, experience, nature, nurture, astrological sign, or what. When is being aware of your outsider status a benefit, and when is it a problem?
On page 94, I loved the way that she depicts a life of routine.
I wonder if being a newcomer to making comic books gives her a fresh face on sequential picture storytelling. Although I don't always think her drawing is particularly good, she does things in unexpected ways, and with a fantastic sense of emotional impact.
This book epitomizes why I value reading memoirs in graphic novel form. When writers incorporate pictures into their rendering of the past, so much value is added.
It's an important book to read. I'm so glad I read it this year.
It's a paperback published by a university press, the cover design isn't awesome, and it's a graphic novel memoir about the southern civil rights movement from the perspective of someone who 1. has never published anything - much less a graphic novel - before, and 2. isn't Black.
Wow, were those first impressions offbase.
Quintero Weaver tells the story of her childhood immigration to Marion, Alabama from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She talks, directly, about what it was like to be a part of the only (apparent) non-white, non-black family in her community. She discusses the different effects emigration and immigration had on her and each of her sisters (as the family moved back and forth from Argentina to the United States, some of the siblings were born in South America, and others in North America). And then, she talks about what it was like to live a block away on the night that Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed during a peaceful voting rights march in 1965.
It's a chilling story.
But a story in context.
This is a story that has stuck with me - that I've found myself thinking about afterwards. As I read, I found myself grabbing paper and a pen to notate sections I wanted to remember.
For instance, page 66, Quintero Weaver describes how reading her older sister's collection of books enriched her personal education. In addition to depicting the impact of literacy, for me, it drew forth the particular quality of grabbing a print book off a shelf and reading it in secret. That experience is hard to duplicate in digital form.
On page 81, she says "Somehow daddy lacked the self-consciousness that usually comes with outsider status." This made me wonder if he truly lacked that self-consciousness, or if he refused it. Made me wonder if people attain that self-consciousness quality based on personality type, experience, nature, nurture, astrological sign, or what. When is being aware of your outsider status a benefit, and when is it a problem?
On page 94, I loved the way that she depicts a life of routine.
I wonder if being a newcomer to making comic books gives her a fresh face on sequential picture storytelling. Although I don't always think her drawing is particularly good, she does things in unexpected ways, and with a fantastic sense of emotional impact.
This book epitomizes why I value reading memoirs in graphic novel form. When writers incorporate pictures into their rendering of the past, so much value is added.
It's an important book to read. I'm so glad I read it this year.