White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad

 

Title: White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color
Author: Ruby Hamad
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 978-1948226745
Genre: Cultural Anthropology, Essays, Nonfiction
Pages: 304
Source: Publisher 
Rating: 5/5 

This book is much-needed for the times we live in. Actually for any time – past or present or even the future sadly, given how situations play themselves out over and over again. Situations where white people have set certain standards of humanity and how to live and even love for the rest of the world. Situations where they do not give any agency to people of colour, more so to women of colour, and even if what is perceived as agency isn’t really that. Ruby Hamad’s explosive and very important book “White Tears/Brown Scars” brings to fore and speaks of how white women use their tears to avoid speaking of and mainly confronting their racism.

This book is an off-shoot from Hamad’s article on the same topic that came out in The Guardian in the year 2018, and how that further led to Hamad being contacted by various women of colour with their stories of being betrayed by white women and their tears.

This book is extremely well-researched and an account of the white woman’s role in colonialism, in racism, and in oppressing the people of colour. It doesn’t restrict itself only to the women. It goes beyond that , to men of colour as well. Ruby’s book is global in nature and we all can see how we sometimes behave around white people. We who were once colonised, still carry that burden and remain forever apologetic. This is exactly what happens when a women of colour confronts a white women about her racism – she is apologetic to the white woman, as though it wasn’t her place to call out casual racism.

White Tears/Brown Scars should make people uncomfortable, more so the white people and make them realize what they are doing or have been doing over the years. It is necessarily uncomfortable. Hamad doesn’t write only about the US of A. She ropes in other countries as well – whether it is about the history of Aboriginal women in Australia and how they are treated or the Arab women at large in the world – these are perspectives and stories that must be heard, read, and internalised.

Hamad’s book is a revelation to me (I think it would also be the same for most people). The writing is razor-sharp and she doesn’t hesitate from calling a spade, a spade. It delves into performative victimhood and the truths aren’t palpable. In some cases the book reads like an oral history and maybe that’s what it is – experiences of women of colour with White women’s defensiveness and gas lighting in personal and professional settings.

“White Tears/Brown Scars” is a book that should be required reading for anyone interested in intersectional feminism. It is about the imbalance of power, and how it affects feminism. She takes a view of all of it – history, culture, research, and ultimately the lives of women to make us understand the role of white supremacy in all of it. Please read it.

The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Title: The Revisioners
Author: Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Publisher: Counterpoint
ISBN: 978-1640094260
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 288
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

I was stunned after reading The Revisioners. I still am. There were times I put down the book because I was scared of turning the page, wondering what will happen to characters I fell in love with, mainly the protagonists. This story is about two African-American women connected by blood, and divided by time. The story moves from 2017 to 1924, and also taking place in 1855. There is a lot going on in the book. It is a tale of generations, legacies, healing, motherhood, racism, prejudice, and old-age traditions.

The book starts in New Orleans in the year 2017, when Ava, a biracial mom and her teenage son King move in with Ava’s white, wealthy grandmother Martha. Ava becomes her caretaker, as she is recently laid off and could do with some money and rent-free accommodation. She does all of this so she can finally buy a place of her own after saving some money. Little does she know what’s in store for her and her son – Martha starts behaving erratically and things start to change.

Josephine, Ava’s ancestor’s story is set in 1924 when she is a free woman with her own plantation and house, alternating in the year 1855 when she was a young slave girl on the Wildwood plantation. Josephine befriends a white, lonely, younger woman Charlotte and an uneasy friendship is formed between the two. Josephine has learned the hard way and strived to find her voice and Charlotte has her own past to deal with. The question then is: Can a black woman and a white woman ever be friends?

The power dynamics between the white and the marginalised black are neatly laid out. Sexton speaks up and makes you realize with every scene and conversation about the privilege, the distance, and the promise and audacity of hope between the white and black women as their paths cross. Sexton’s writing is raw and grabs you from the first page. And might I add that it is not a slave narrative. It is about hope, courage, and how to stand your own ground when it comes to identity and the connections of ancestry. It is about how two black women a century apart experience racism, and how things perhaps haven’t changed all that much. The stories of Ava and Josephine are ground in reality, though sometimes they take on a mythical quality, lending them the magic realism tone.

The Revisioners is a book that is needed. It is needed for people to not only check privilege but also make an effort to reduce gaps, to cross bridges, and examine their relationships with people around them. It is a reminder of blood relationships and also relationships that go beyond blood, and expand into a community, and last forever.

What Happens At Night by Peter Cameron

Title: What Happens At Night
Author: Peter Cameron
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 978-1948226967
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

This book is strange, and yet not so. It did seem weird when I began reading it, but then all the pieces took shape and joined together perfectly, like a jigsaw puzzle, and then I wasn’t baffled anymore. At the same time, I am in awe of Cameron’s writing – astute, precise, and fabulist – so much rolled into one, and yet the individual threads of the story aren’t lost.

An unnamed American couple has travelled days from New York City, to an unnamed European country, with the sole purpose of adopting a child. They are staying in a palatial and yet extremely spooky old hotel, Borgarfjaroasysla Grand Imperial Hotel.  The woman is battling stage-four cancer, and this is the reason no one outside of this country will let them adopt a child. A child to them is the only hope to get through life with the hurdle thrown at them.

In all of this they encounter a motley bunch of people – odd, bizarre, mysterious, and sometimes macabre as well, right from a businessman who wants to seduce the man, an ageing former actress who seems to have her own agenda, a local healer, and a bartender who concocts the best local schnapps. This is not even half of the story by the way. The other part of the story where the action really takes place is the marriage of the couple and what happens to it in a strange country surrounded by strange people.

I think what stayed with me while I was reading the book, and will continue to is the atmospheric elements that Cameron infuses so generously – it feels as though the elements are at play independent of the plot (to some extent) but they are the driving force of the narrative. From the gloom of a night to the brightness of a lamp in the hotel room, to the menacing outdoors – the orphanage, the healer’s place, and the railway station – each element brings out a sense of dread and suspense – juxtaposing the marriage of the couple.

I firmly believe that the marriage is another character that is always at the forefront. The frailties of it, the thin line between love and hate, the secrets that hold a marriage together, and what we learn about ourselves in the process shines in Cameron’s prose. Yes, the world of What Happens at Night is weird and enigmatic, and strange, yet it is soothing. I wanted to be in it. A fly on the wall, maybe but I wanted to be a part of it. A world of strangers – each assigned their own role, and at the heart of it – the unnamed couple and their perceptions of marital bliss or otherwise.

All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

Title: All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir
Author: Nicole Chung
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 978-1936787975
Genre: Memoir, Women
Pages: 240
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

It is never easy to bare your soul and speak the truth. When a writer does that, or for that matter anyone who does that, you instantly connect. Not because you have faced the same, but because there is empathy that extends itself on a universal sphere – that of longing, loss, and love. Nicole Chung’s book is all of that and more.

Nicole was adopted by a white couple in Oregon when she was two months old. As a child, Chung’s adoptive parents always made it a point to let her know that she was adopted.  She rarely met any Asian people growing-up and often felt a sense of alienation – a sense of not belonging and made to feel that by children and adults. As she grew into an adult, this bothered her even more. More so, when she thinks of starting a family with her husband Dan, and sets out to find her birth parents. 

All You Can Ever Know is a memoir that cuts through the pretence. It is stark and doesn’t mince words. Of course the sense of family and its roots is very strong, but at no point does Chung’s writing make it seem like she needs validation. It is just an honest account told as though someone is writing a diary or confiding in an old friend. What she went through is extremely heartfelt and moves you to tears (at least did to me). There is also a lot of humour amidst family secrets, relationships, and the question of identity that Chung brings to the book. The complications of race are sensitively told, and ultimately it is all about love and what defines it in the long run. All You Can Ever Know is a must-read for all families – no matter what kind or shape.

 

Nine Island by Jane Alison

Title: Nine Island
Author: Jane Alison
Publisher: Catapult Books
ISBN: 978-1936787128
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 244
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5 Stars

Nine Island is the kind of book that will sink in way after you have read it. It makes most sense sometimes and no sense at all, the other times. Jane Alison’s writing is lucid at so many points and so vague at the other points. You get my drift, don’t you? It is a dream-like book. I was astounded when it began the way it did and there were also times I was bored out of my mind. Having said that, I reread a couple of passages of the book once I was done with it and let me tell you: They sparkled and spoke in a new voice to me.

What is the book about?

I don’t know how to tell you what the book is about – it is a lot of things actually – a love story, a rumination on Ovid and his tales, about solitude and the bonds we forge as we grow older and circumstances change and mostly, it is about taking second chances and giving yourself the luxury to make your mistakes and fall in love, all over again.

At the heart of the book is J (It is an autobiographical novel by the way), who lives alone past a certain age and yearns for love and companionship. She is trying to decide whether or not to withdraw from romantic love after returning from a reunion with an old flame, Sir Gold. The visit to Sir Gold results in nothing and thus the decision to be made. J lives in Miami and throughout the book ponders over love, Ovid (she is translating his magical stories) and about her ailing mother.

Now, what took me by the horns where this book is concerned is the force of Alison’s writing. The form of writing is free-flowing and that is what allows you to conveniently sink into it. The book is candid and doesn’t mince words about emotions and what J is going through. The first-person narrative works wonders for a book like this. All in all, Nine Island is a book that will make you reassess your relationship and speak with you in ways you didn’t imagine.