Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

Description

'By turns hilarious and heart-rending. Plunges fearlessly into the murky grey areas of race and family, of struggling to find common ground, of trying to talk to our children and help them make sense of it all' Celeste Ng 'Does Donald Trump hate Muslims?' 'Is that how people really walk on the moon?' 'Is it bad to be brown?' 'Are white people afraid of brown people?' Inspired by her viral BuzzFeed piece '37 Difficult Questions from My Mixed-Raced Son', Mira Jacob responds to: her six-year-old, Zakir, who asks if the new president hates brown boys like him; uncomfortable relationship advice from her parents, who came to the United States from India one month into their arranged marriage; and increasingly fraught exchanges with her Trump-supporting in-laws. Jacob also investigates her own past, including how it felt to be a brown-skinned New Yorker on 9/11. As earnest and moving as they are laugh-out-loud funny, these are the stories that have shaped one life, but will resonate with many others.

Mira Jacob is the author of the novel The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing, the co-founder of the Brooklyn literary night Pete's Reading Series and has contributed writings and drawings to the New York Times, Vogue, the Daily Telegraph and Shondaland. She teaches at NYU and the New School and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. mirajacob.com / @mirajacob

Good Talk isn't just Mira Jacob's personal story: it also illuminates the increasingly fractured world we live in. By turns hilarious and heart-rending, it plunges fearlessly into the murky grey areas of race and family, of struggling to find common ground, of trying to talk to our children and help them make sense of it all * Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere * Searching, often hilarious ... [T]he medium is part of the magic of Good Talk. The old comic-book alchemy of words and pictures opens up new possibilities of feeling * New York Times Book Review * [A] moving and very funny graphic novel that explores identity, race, sexuality and love -- Best Books of 2019 * Esquire * [A] breezy but poignant graphic memoir that takes on racism, love and the election of President Trump ... The collage effect creates an odd, immediate intimacy ... The 'talks' Jacob relates are painful, often hilarious, and sometimes absurd, but her memoir makes a fierce case for continuing to have them * Publishers Weekly (starred review) * A beautiful and eye-opening account of what it means to mother a brown boy and what it means to live in this country post-9/11, as a person of color, as a woman, as an artist ... In Jacob's brilliant hands, we are gifted with a narrative that is sometimes hysterically funny, always honest, and ultimately healing * Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn * Mira Jacob just made me toss everything I thought was possible in a book-as-art-object into the garbage. Her new book changes everything * Kiese Laymon, New York Times bestselling author of Heavy * Good Talk begins with a child's innocent questions about race and evolves into an honest, direct and heartbreakingly funny journey ... It broke my heart and made me laugh a helluva lot, but, in the end, it also forced me to ponder whether I have successfully provided the answers necessary to arm my own children against racism in America * Lynn Nottage, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Sweat * Jacob's earnest recollections are often heartbreaking, but also infused with levity and humor. What stands out the most is the fierce compassion with which she parses the complexities of family and love. Jacob finds hope in the answers that come from asking hard questions * Time Magazine * Insightful ... Good Talk's visuals are simple but powerful, offering a witty and empathetic window into how to talk about - and live in - life's complexities * Entertainment Weekly *