an amazing book i need to recommend

[SarahFTW]

this is my first posting. hello! my name is sarah, and i'm half black half jewish. my mother is jewish.

A friend of mine recommended a book called Ace of Spades by David Matthews, and I love it so much. I'm half way through it and I can't believe how great this book is. It's so funny and personable. There are moments where I have to put the book down and just burst out laughing. But wow, is it well written! David Matthews is poetic with his words. Truly astounding.

Here's a brief description from The New Yorker:

The son of a Zionist white mother and a Malcolm X-admiring black father, Matthews, in this memoir, is a boy without a race in a city, Baltimore, that requires him to choose one. The story of racial pinball is not entirely unfamiliar: the black kids reject him as too light-skinned, the whites as too broad-nosed. But Matthews displays improvisational verve—blacks are "burnished" and "browned butter," and whites are anything from "alabaster" to "a puffy marshmallow in Baltimore’s steaming cup of cocoa"—and narrates with the vigor of a movie script. Indeed, it is on television that, as a child, he finds the clarity he yearns for. "I was a living contradiction of elements that shouldn’t have been," he writes at one point, whereas on TV "everything was black, or white, and a lot like life."​

Really, i can't recommend this book more! I love it! Has anyone else here read it?

 

[Kalam]

No, but it sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out. Thanks!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Sounds like an interesting book. Welcome.

 

[SarahFTW]

thanks for the welcoming!

 

[xsited1]

I look forward to reading it! BTW, I'm half man, half bear, and half pig!

 

[Said1]

I look forward to reading it! BTW, I'm half man, half bear, and half pig!

OMG, me too!

 

[SarahFTW]

I look forward to reading it! BTW, I'm half man, half bear, and half pig!

whoa! remarkable!

 

[editec]

Sounds like a good read.

Thanks for the recommendation

 

[Mad Scientist]

this is my first posting. hello! my name is sarah, and i'm half black half jewish. my mother is jewish.

Welcome to the board Sarah. May I ask you a personal question?

Do you think mixed race (black/white) children get treated differently if the father is white as opposed to the mother?

Thank you in advance.

 

[SarahFTW]

this is my first posting. hello! my name is sarah, and i'm half black half jewish. my mother is jewish.

Welcome to the board Sarah. May I ask you a personal question?

Do you think mixed race (black/white) children get treated differently if the father is white as opposed to the mother?

Thank you in advance.

treated differently by whom?

 

[Mad Scientist]

this is my first posting. hello! my name is sarah, and i'm half black half jewish. my mother is jewish.

Welcome to the board Sarah. May I ask you a personal question?

Do you think mixed race (black/white) children get treated differently if the father is white as opposed to the mother?

Thank you in advance.

treated differently by whom?

By anyone. Do people make the distinction between Black mother or father? What's your experience if any?

 

[SarahFTW]

Welcome to the board Sarah. May I ask you a personal question?

Do you think mixed race (black/white) children get treated differently if the father is white as opposed to the mother?

Thank you in advance.

treated differently by whom?

By anyone. Do people make the distinction between Black mother or father? What's your experience if any?

In terms of debating what counts as jewish vs. notjewish - having a jewish mother does somewhat change things... but not enough to make a difference.

 

[Amanda]

 

[midcan5]

Hmm, is this an ad? We are all bits and pieces but few ever see that.

INTERVIEW: David Matthews, author of Ace of Spades | Memoirville