Library Journal Review
| Ranging from purely imaginative to autobiographical, each of the 18 short stories in this collection touches on some aspect of growing up multiracial, often focusing on the difficulties encountered by children of ambiguous ethnicity. Peter Ho Davies uses the metaphor of the Minotaur as he examines the tension that exists between a son, half-bull and half-man, and his stepfather (half-father). In Stewart David Akeda's "Shadey," that the family is multiethnic is alluded to but not stated directly. Danzy Senna writes mutliple versions of the same story, each featuring a protagonist of a different ethnicity. Here the story only differs from the point of view of the observer, not from within the characters, theme, or action of the story. This collection makes it clear that there is no single experience when it comes to multiracism. Also contributing to its diversity are the authors' varied styles and approaches. Because the story of America is the story of ethnicity and identity, this collection will find an appreciative audience, especially among those wanting to examine aspects of our multicultural society. Rebecca Stuhr, Grinnell Coll. Libs., IA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. |
Publishers Weekly Review
| Pradsad's Outwitting the Job Market included meditations on diversity and the workplace; her choice of fiction over nonfiction for this anthology may reflect her own shifts: her novel One of the Boys is due in 2007. All of the contributors are from mixed or multiracial backgrounds; Prasad notes in her foreword that there is "some commonality" among them: "being proof of an increasingly global society, acting as the solder between various communities, straddling cultural expectations." In "Footnote," memoirist Carmit Delman (Burnt Bread and Chutney) writes of a quarter-Indian girl raised in West Virginia who takes a carnal route to discovering identity. Mat Johnson's "Gift Giving" uses the typical story of the cuckold (the author dedicates the story to an ex-fiance) to dispel numerous cliches of biracial coupledom: "The [women] I knew who socialized white always had some mythic white ex-boyfriend to whom no Negro could compare." In "The Caste System," Mary Yukari Waters (The Laws of Evening) sends Sarah Rexford to Japan with her grandmother for a visit to her mother's grave, and to her aunt Kimiko. There are short author bios written by the writers themselves, and thumbnail photos of each author. At the end of each of the 18 stories, the writer gives a brief description of what inspired it. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. |
Booklist Review
| Going way beyond the mythology of the tragic mulatto, this anthology of short stories by and about people of mixed racial heritage explores the complexities of multiracialism and multiculturalism. Ruth Ozeki offers a quasi-autobiographical story about the children of white anthropologists and their Asian wives; British Jamaican Lucinda Roy tells of a mixed-race professor whose authenticity as a black man is questioned; Peter Ho Davies, Welsh and Chinese, writes of a confused minotaur, the result of a mixed-species liaison; Prasad, of Italian, English, Swedish, and Indian heritage, conveys the alienation of an adolescent girl who is part-Indian, part-Russian. Other contributors include Emily Raboteau, Diana Abu-Jaber, Mat Johnson, Cristina Garcia, Wayde Compton, and Neela Vaswani. Each piece is preceded by a short biographical sketch of the writer and concludes with a commentary. This is an absorbing and thought-provoking collection of stories that explore racial identity, alienation, and people often forced to choose between races and cultures in a search for self-identity. --Vanessa Bush Copyright 2006 Booklist |