A “beautiful and eye-opening” (Jacqueline Woodson), “hilarious and heart-rending” (Celeste Ng) graphic memoir about American identity, interracial families, and the realities that divide us, from the acclaimed author of The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing.NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Chicago Tribune • The New York Public Library • Publishers Weekly AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF … Publishers Weekly AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • BuzzFeed • Esquire • Library Journal • Kirkus Reviews
“How brown is too brown?”
“Can Indians be racist?”
“What does real love between really different people look like?”
Like many six-year-olds, Mira Jacob’s half-Jewish, half-Indian son, Z, has questions about everything. At first they are innocuous enough, but as tensions from the 2016 election spread from the media into his own family, they become much, much more complicated. Trying to answer him honestly, Mira has to think back to where she’s gotten her own answers: her most formative conversations about race, color, sexuality, and, of course, love.
Written with humor and vulnerability, this deeply relatable graphic memoir is a love letter to the art of conversation—and to the hope that hovers in our most difficult questions.
LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD
“Jacob’s earnest recollections are often heartbreaking, but also infused with levity and humor. What stands out most is the fierce compassion with which she parses the complexities of family and love.”—Time
“Good Talk uses a masterful mix of pictures and words to speak on life’s most uncomfortable conversations.”—io9
“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
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By turns hilarious and heart-rending, it’s exactly the book America needs at this moment.
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.
This was not shockingly very heavy, though it was funny in places. I have parents much like her in-laws, so her hard discussions with her son about his grandparents hit me the hardest. The art style was really cool and different from other graphic memoirs, and I really liked it.
This book was a gift. I say this because I normally wouldn’t choose a graphic novel or, as in the case of Good Talk, a graphic memoir. But the minute I cracked the cover, I was hooked. Mira Jacob is a superb storyteller; the graphics add a lot to the story, but even without them, it would still be well worth reading. It’s primarily about growing up mixed-race in contemporary America and raising a mixed-race child, but it’s also about becoming a writer in contemporary America, and being a woman in contemporary America, and being a human being in these insane political times. I would have read the entire book in one sitting, but needed to take a short break to attend to a family issue. So I finished it as soon as I could get back to it. Highly recommended.
I didn’t realize when I bought it that it is an illustrated book in comic book style. When it arrived at my house and I unwrapped it, I started reading and couldn’t put it down. It’s heartwarming, sad and happy, sometimes all at the same time. The artwork is amazing and contributes a lot to the story line. I highly recommend it.
I loved this book. Equally hilarious and heartbreaking, Good Talk is about prejudice and family and forgiveness, and it’s full of warmth.
I absolutely loved Jacob’s THE SLEEPWALKER’S GUIDE TO DANCING, about the struggles of a young Indian woman who is navigating the expectations of her traditional Indian family with the pull of an American life during a serious family crisis. GOOD TALK, a memoir drawn and narrated in snippets of conversation, explores the challenges of the author, an Indian woman married to a white Jewish man, raising her mixed-race son in an age of racial intolerance. It’s funny, heartbreaking, and very thought-provoking.
Remarkable – A Graphic Novel Capturing Racism in America.
It’s all here! The angst of a committed mother trying to answer her mixed race son’s questions. The way even well-meaning white Americans too often lump together anyone with dark skin, making assumptions that demean and marginalize. The hope Barack Obama’s election gave to people of color. The divisiveness of Donald Trump’s campaign, its impact on politically diverse families, and the disturbing concerns that have surfaced since his election.
At the start, I was skeptical that a graphic novel could do justice to such complex topics. But it does. Cleverly, and oh so creatively! Through simple but evocative images and spare text, this book is just as emotional, rich, and comprehensive as a more traditional novel. And somehow the style of the artwork actually enhances the message, rather than trivializes.
Mira Jacobs skillfully tackles many of the subtle ways racism is manifested in contemporary America, how disturbing it is for her to contemplate all the ways racism will impact her young son as he grows up, and the toll it takes on people of color to simply live every day in our society. Not to mention the tensions that arise between a mixed-raced couple.
This is a quick read. And very compelling. So, don’t miss it! It’s one of the most thoughtful and powerful explorations of racism in contemporary America that I’ve ever read.
This book is a symbol of humanity
Good Talk begins with a child’s innocent questions about race and evolves into an honest, direct, and heartbreakingly funny journey. As a brown-skinned woman married to a Jewish man and the mother of a biracial child, I experienced this book on multiple levels: 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.
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.