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Look out for Danzy Senna's latest book, New People, on sale in August! Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston. The sisters are so close that they speak their own language, yet Birdie, with her light skin and straight hair, is often mistaken for white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at school. Despite their differences, Cole is Birdie's confidant, her protector, the mirror by which she understands herself. Then their parents' marriage collapses. One night Birdie watches her father and his new girlfriend drive away with Cole. Soon Birdie and her mother are on the road as well, drifting across the country in search of a new home. But for Birdie, home will always be Cole. Haunted by the loss of her sister, she sets out a desperate search for the family that left her behind. The extraordinary national bestseller that launched Danzy Senna's literary career, Caucasia is a modern classic, at once a powerful coming of age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America. … (more)
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While Birdie is favored by their rich white grandmother who only refers to Cole as your sister, Cole is favored by their father and by many of their black family and friends. The novel is set during the fading years of the 1960's and 70's Black Power movement which both of Birdie's parents are heavily involved in. They send their daughters to an all black school with a Pan-African curriculum. In spite of her nearly white skin, Birdie is basically raised as a black girl.
When her mother goes into hiding to escape the F.B.I. who want her for her involvement with violent radical groups she takes Birdie along. Her father keeps Cole. Years go by and Birdie never hears from either. Meanwhile, her mother gives her a new identity, as a Jewish girl named Jesse. The two settle down in rural New Hampshire where Birdie finds a kind of normalcy attending the local public schools and making friends with the white girls she meets there.
Because they think she is white the people she meets, even her close friends, feel free to openly be their racist selves. Since she believes her mother will be in danger if anyone ever finds out who she really is, Birdie must keep quite while her classmates make fun of the only black girl in the school and while her mother's boyfriend makes a casual remark unaware of how racist he is.
But none of this is why I like Caucasia so much. At its heart Caucasia is a book about family. What makes the first half work so well is the wonderful relationship between Birdie and her sister Cole. The two are fully drawn, complex believable characters, but there is a fantastic element to them, something kind of magic. Big sisters protect little ones, little sisters look up to big ones, but these two have a secret language. Their bond goes much deeper than blood, certainly deeper than skin color.
Once Birdie and her mother go underground together, the novel becomes a mother/daughter story. This bond is certainly deep, but it's not as wonderful. Birdie's mother is not someone who can be completely trusted. We never know what she did, in fact we soon begin to suspect that the only F.B.I. agents chasing her may be in her head. Birdie loves her, as any child loves her mother, but her love includes a healthy dose of hate. Did her mother only take her along because she couldn't go into hiding with a black daughter? Was Birdie her second choice? The second half of the novel is a portrait of this mother/daughter pairing. I was reminded of Mona Simpson's wonderful novel Anywhere but Here. Like that novel, I found reading Caucasia to be like spending time with friends. My favorite kind of character driven novel.
The
Senna puts the Lee family in an unusual situation and we watch what happens. Radical mom goes undercover to escape the CIA and takes Birdie, the white looking daughter, with her because they are a color match. Birdie, who worked so hard to fit in as black kid must now pass for white.
This book puts a human face to abstract issues of race and class. We feel everything through Birdie. As our country limps along, trying not to deal with race and class—our most crippling issues—works of fiction like Caucasia can help us get into the heads of others and begin to understand what it’s like.
I've read an array of texts featuring caucasian and African-American heroines, but never a
Recommended by: Anne R.
I LOVE this novel and could read it again and again. I laughed and cried throughout.
I don't want to talk too much about the story because I don't think I can do that without ruining some of its surprises, but I will share the setup. We see this story through the eyes of Birdie Lee, the youngest daughter of an interracial couple in 1960s Boston. Her parents are both involved in the Black Power movement, her Black father as an academic and her White mother as a committed if erratic revolutionary running from her Boston Brahmin past. Birdie and her sister Cole are collateral damage as their parents' marriage and the Black Power movement implode. Cole is dark-skinned and nappy-haired (the only family member able to pick out a decent afro) and Birdie is light-skinned and straight-haired, with people assuming she is Sicilian, Puerto Rican, and Jewish in different parts of the story. Their lives after the implosion (and to a lesser extent even before the implosion) are defined in many ways by the way people perceive their race. It was interesting how Senna ground the "race is a construct" discussion under her heel because for these purposes, for these little girls, it just does not matter if it is a construct, it is their reality and the world makes them choose up sides, or more accurately the world chooses for them. They create an alternate world and language, Elemeno, where there is no such thing as race, and where everyone can transform at will, but sadly they are the only two who live there.
This is where I am going to stop talking about what happens in the story, though for those interested I am sure other reviews cover it. I have not read other reviews, and I enjoyed being surprised by the way the story rolled out. I will say that the story places Birdie in different environments, and those changes impact everything about her life. I liked seeing how race was a sort of aggravating factor in other experiences and facts such as physically maturing, being the new kid in school, connecting to romantic partners, and pursuing academic success.
Ultimately I found this story challenging and moving and also really engrossing. Birdie is a great companion to travel with. She is wise and a bit world-weary but she is also a child and Senna never loses sight of that.