Stories of Biracial America |
The New York Times
2011-05-06
Barack Obama makes two appearances in Danzy Senna’s first story collection, “You Are Free”: in a photograph on an administrator’s desk at an exclusive preschool, and on the bumper sticker of a BMW. Seeing that BMW, the narrator of the story “Replacement Theory” observes, “The election had come and gone, the blackish man was in charge, and the slogan on the bumper—Yes We Can—already had the feeling of some dusty, long-gone revolution.”
If Obama is “blackish,” Senna’s central characters are usually whitish, the genes of a light-skinned parent predominating over those of the dark-skinned one. Langston Hughes’s famous poem “I, Too” begins: “I, too, sing America. / I am the darker brother.” In Senna’s stories, as in her novels (“Caucasia” and “Symptomatic”) and her memoir (“Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”), she explores what it’s like to be the lighter sister…
Read the entire review here.
Tags: Danzy Senna, New York Times, Polly Rosenwaike, The New York Times