Good Talk

Mira Jacob's son, Z, is six years old and wants to know about everything. His half-Jewish, half-Indian background, her marriage, and the world around them all prompt questions, and at first they are easy to field. Then the 2016 election pulls political tension into the family itself, and the questions grow harder: how brown is too brown, whether Indians can be racist, and what real love looks like between people who come from very different places.

To answer him honestly, Mira has to go back and look at where her own answers came from. She revisits the conversations that shaped her understanding of race, color, sexuality, and love, including exchanges with her parents, her husband, friends, and strangers. Some are tender, some are painful, and a few are absurd.

Good Talk is a graphic memoir in which illustrated panels and text work together. Jacob's tone is funny and vulnerable by turns, and she treats the awkward moments in family life as openings rather than failures. The book looks at American identity, interracial families, and the divisions that persist between people, while holding on to the hope that is tucked inside even the most uncomfortable questions.

It is the second book from Jacob, who also wrote the novel The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing. It was longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award.