Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

"[I] loved it so so much. So poignant, honest, funny, powerful, and timely, and its themes build in a way that by the end is truly artistically transcendent."--Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times bestselling author of Prep and Eligible

"Among its many virtues, Mira Jacob's graphic memoir, Good Talk, helps us think through this term ['person of color'] with grace and disarming wit. The book lives up to its title, and reading these searching, often hilarious tête-à-têtes is as effortless as eavesdropping on a crosstown bus. . . . The medium is part of the magic. . . . The old comic-book alchemy of words and pictures opens up new possibilities of feeling. . . . The people are black and white--except, of course, they're not."--Ed Park, The New York Times Book Review

"Good Talk addresses head-on the complexities of being fully American while also being fully Jewish, fully Indian, fully mixed, fully whatever in the era of Trump. . . . Good Talk attempts to answer, with humor and heart, some of the most difficult questions of all."--Bustle

"[A] showstopping memoir about race in America . . . by turns funny, philosophical, cautious, and heartbreaking . . . Particularly moving are the chapters in which Jacob explores how even those close to her retain closed-minded and culturally defined prejudices. . . . The memoir works well visually, with striking pen-and-ink drawings . . . collaged onto vibrant found photographs and illustrated backgrounds. . . . Told with immense bravery and candor, this book will make readers hunger for more of Jacob's wisdom and light."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Breezy but poignant . . . [Mira Jacob] employs pages of narrative prose sparingly but hauntingly. . . . The 'talks' Jacob relates are painful, often hilarious, and sometimes absurd, but her memoir makes a fierce case for continuing to have them."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A beautiful and eye-opening account of what it means to mother a brown boy and what it means to live in this country post-9/11, as a person of color, as a woman, as an artist . . . In Jacob's brilliant hands, we are gifted with a narrative that is sometimes hysterically funny, always honest, and ultimately healing."--Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn

"Good Talk begins with a child's innocent questions about race and evolves into an honest, direct, and heartbreakingly funny journey. As a brown-skinned woman married to a Jewish man and the mother of a biracial child, I experienced this book on multiple levels: It broke my heart and made me laugh a helluva lot, but, in the end, it also forced me to ponder whether I have successfully provided the answers necessary to arm my own children against racism in America."--Lynn Nottage, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Sweat