Danzy Senna

She'd never understood so profoundly how much being a novelist was at odds with domestic life, with sanity. But now she saw it clearly. To be a novelist was to be a dreadful parent. To be a novelist was to be a monstrous marriage partner. That kind of writing had no beginning and no end. It just crept around the house, infecting every element of family life. You couldn't live with it, you couldn't live without it.

Jane married for love, but an assistant writing professor whose chances at show more tenure and security rely on her completing her second novel, a book she's been working on for close to a decade and now, on sabbatical and living in a friend's fancy house, this is her last opportunity. Her husband is supportive of her writing but as he is an artist, she's the one who is supporting their family. Their kids need stability and she dreams of a craftsman house in a multicultural neighborhood, while he dreams of moving the family to Japan. They still love each other, but the strain is showing. When Jane's novel, an enormous, sweeping book about mulattos throughout American history, a mix of history and fiction, is rejected, she's sent into a tailspin, which leads her to trying to get a gig writing for television, an attempt that will strain her marriage yet further, but maybe save her dreams of home-ownership and financial security.

This novel is both sharp-edged and easy to read, a combination that sometimes softens the very points Senna is making. There's a complexity behind the Hollywood show runner excitement, about belonging and identity and how to raise kids in the world as it is. Jane is a great protagonist, she's confident and sure of her talent, but also prone to worry and to feeling like she's failing. No one gets off lightly, and no one is short-changed. Senna makes even the tertiary characters feel real. There are neither easy solutions nor easy targets in this book I will be thinking about for awhile. show less

This novel made me think. I’ve been white all my life, never really thought about it, certainly didn’t ever wonder if I or my friends and family were doing whiteness right. I think, aside from the KKK, Nazis and other such groups, we white folk just take our whiteness for granted (it may be different in the south). Maria is what she terms as a one dropper, just barely, barely has African American heritage. She and her boyfriend and his sister are the objects of a documentary called show more “New People” about mixed race younger people. To my mind she’s a pretty unlikeable character because she is completely self centered. She obsesses about race and rightness and uses race to beat people over the head, and she is loyal to no one but herself. She was adopted by a single black woman when she was 6 months old and was whiter than her mother wanted, but still Grace, her mother, seemed to give her all the love and guidance she needed. How did she end up this way? This book could be used to get people of different races talking with each other mainly because it points up our blind spots. I’ll be thinking about it for a while. show less

New People by Senna Danzy is a 2017 Riverhead Books publication.

Unconventional, a little disturbing, but thought provoking and exceptionally written-

Despite its brevity, this book packs a potent punch, written in a quirky, offbeat prose, that captured my attention and forced me to stay focused.

The novel is, without a doubt, about race. ‘New People’ meaning ‘biracial'. However, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Maria and her fiancé Khalil are both biracial- Maria’s show more adoptive mother was black, but Maria is very fair skinned, as is Khalil, whose background is eclectic.

Maria is doing her dissertation on the ‘Jonestown Massacre’, while planning her wedding. But, her relationship with Khalil is tested when she develops a crush on a poet, who is not biracial. Suddenly, her stable life becomes very erratic as she searches for that elusive something that remains just out of reach.

The book is almost satirical at times, has a wry sense of humor, but is also very tense. Maria has a dark secret she’s kept from Khalil and she practically stalks her ‘crush’, as well as exhibiting a few other very odd behaviors that had me sitting on the edge of my seat.

Maria is the prominent character, the one whose narrative we follow as she sends herself down a path of self-discovery, a very risky journey that could upend her life as she knows it. She is a most unusual person, not necessarily a likeable young lady, or someone I felt I could bond with or feel empathy towards, but I found her choices almost hypnotic. At times I couldn’t bear to watch and at others I couldn’t bear to look away. I had to see what, if any, consequences or repercussions there would be for her actions.

The Jonestown topic runs in the background as it harkens back to the themes that brought the cult followers to such a point in their lives and is juxtaposed against the attitudes that came about in the nineties, especially in campus life. It’s an interesting force in Maria’s search for her own identity.

The ending is a bit abrupt. Khalil appears oblivious to Maria’s angst or past sins, so we are left to wonder if Maria’s thirst has been quenched or if her search will continue or evolve to include her fiancé.

I found Maria to be one of the most interesting characters I’ve been introduced to recently and this book did make me stop and think about many of the topics addressed here, even days after finishing the novel.

I enjoyed the style of writing, and the refreshing change of pace this book provided. This is my first book by this author, but I will definitely keep an eye out for her work in the future.

4 stars show less

A stunning look into the life of a young mixed-race girl as she tries to find her place in her family, the world, and within herself. Set in the 1970s and early 80s, Birdie's journey from 8 year old girl to 15 year old young woman, growing up in a highly politicized household is an extraordinarily candid look at both what race is as well as realizing that race is nothing but a society constructed idea. Beautifully executed, Senna's characters are human and flawed in a way that makes them show more identifiable and empathetic, even when it is sometimes difficult to like them. show less