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A review by mo_mentan
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
4.0
not quite as much a favourite as "the heaven & earth grocery store" and "deacon king kong", but i still liked this a lot.
it was very interesting to hear about mcbrides background and his growing up in such a large, somewhat exceptional but also very normal and quintessentially human family.
i cried with his mother over her hurt of growing out of her family, the pain and grief of losing her husbands and even a child. i was proud with her of her accomplishments, of her children, of the love she spread in the world.
i struggled a bit with the sheer amount of faith that mcbride brings into this at the end. not with his mother's way to christianity, his parents' church or his own christian upbringing, but with the way he sums it all up. saying "i struggled" is wrong, actually, i just wasn't able to relate and i think i just have a more radical respective on social change than he has, or at least had when he wrote this book and its 10th-anniversary afterword. however, he obviously has lived through so much more relevant moments and situations in history than i have, so this is not to say that i disrespect his view, only that i don't understand it and don't agree on account of what i have read from other authors and made out from my own experience.
once more i learned a lot about african and jewish american history, about the immigrant experience and new lives in the north. the sense of community mcbride details touches me every time.
i also found it very interesting to see bits and pieces (names, places, incidents) in this text, that come up again in his later fictional work. it really touched me the way he obviously weaves his personal history and experience in his storytelling.
what i didn't miss in this one (even though there were some instances where he came close to it) were the descriptions of women including "swaying breasts" and other such expressions of male gaze. this always has a strange fascination on me because i ask myself whether this really is how (some) men see the world, but it also makes me uncomfortable.
it was very interesting to hear about mcbrides background and his growing up in such a large, somewhat exceptional but also very normal and quintessentially human family.
i cried with his mother over her hurt of growing out of her family, the pain and grief of losing her husbands and even a child. i was proud with her of her accomplishments, of her children, of the love she spread in the world.
i struggled a bit with the sheer amount of faith that mcbride brings into this at the end. not with his mother's way to christianity, his parents' church or his own christian upbringing, but with the way he sums it all up. saying "i struggled" is wrong, actually, i just wasn't able to relate and i think i just have a more radical respective on social change than he has, or at least had when he wrote this book and its 10th-anniversary afterword. however, he obviously has lived through so much more relevant moments and situations in history than i have, so this is not to say that i disrespect his view, only that i don't understand it and don't agree on account of what i have read from other authors and made out from my own experience.
once more i learned a lot about african and jewish american history, about the immigrant experience and new lives in the north. the sense of community mcbride details touches me every time.
i also found it very interesting to see bits and pieces (names, places, incidents) in this text, that come up again in his later fictional work. it really touched me the way he obviously weaves his personal history and experience in his storytelling.
what i didn't miss in this one (even though there were some instances where he came close to it) were the descriptions of women including "swaying breasts" and other such expressions of male gaze. this always has a strange fascination on me because i ask myself whether this really is how (some) men see the world, but it also makes me uncomfortable.