JCO: Re: Black Girl/ White Girl

hi all

i liked BG/WG quite a bit. It interests me that, as in Because It Is Bitter, JCO is using a white girl who has a family, but a malfunctioning one, as a means of exploring the shadowlands of race.  Genna, like Iris (and the girl in I'll Take You There) is seeking a completely different 'family' than the one she was born into (or "pledged" in ITYT) and is approaching a black individual who doesn't seem to need her -- at all, and who doesn't want to be used as a 'type'.  Interesting too that the more affluent and educated Hewett-Meades do an even lousier job raising their kids than Persia does with Iris.  Yet the three novels seem so very different too.  But yeah, I liked it.  It reminded me of Lessing's middle Martha Quest novels like Ripple from the Storm where the irony is so deep in the grain that it is impossible to decipher if its "origins" are hope or despair...  For me, the two themes Dave noted merge in this thicket of irony.

Rick Oehling

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JCO: Black Girl/ White Girl

Hi all

 

Am I the only one to be disapointed with JCO latest novel, Black Girl/White Girl?  I thought that JCO could not make her mind up whether she wished to highlight the tensions of being the daughter of a radical family at the end of the liberal era in the USA or whether she wished to draw our attention to the racism that could existy at the heart of a liberal educational establishment.

 

For me this confusion got in the way of the narrative.

 

Dave

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