Disappearing Acts

Barring the full-throttle social media hype machine and the lofty 7-figure television adaptation deal Brit Bennett scored, what drew me to this book was the premise of racial passing. Of Louisiana-born twin sisters, Desiree and Stella Vignes, so light in color, with features that lean more Euro than Afro, that one decides to pass for white. 

The act of "passing", of colorist issues in the Black community, of being asked "what are you?", of the paper bag test, blue veins, of "light, bright and damn near white", of "good hair", of that "one drop rule"...all these divisive, archaic socialized barricades aren't lost on me, so going into this book wasn't a 'shock' or a revelation. 

Disclaimer time: I'm a "light bright" Black woman. I was raised in a Black family of variant brown, bronze, and cream shades, with some immediate family members who could 'pass' due to their light complexions. I've heard stories of certain, 'fairer' family members (my two grandmothers for starts) who've sat in the white sections of then-segregated movie theaters in East Texas without detection, and know of two distant relatives on both sides who've 'passed over' into becoming "white". One was, I believe, murdered once his true identity was found out. 

With all that being said, I proceeded to read The Vanishing Half with a bit of cautious optimism, or really optimistic apprehension. Character studies are my jam, as are mother and daughter debacles, add a little controversial race issues, and you have my full attention. Plus, the act of 'passing' quite fascinates? disturbs? me. How elusive, complex, almost performative it is to 'become' another race, or as the the wiki definition goes: "a person of color or of multiracial ancestry who assimilated into the white majority to escape the legal and social conventions of racial segregation and discrimination". 

'Passing' carries a different weight than it did back when Jim Crow laws ran rampant. It isn't seen as much of a risk or a survival technique to navigate segregated territories, but it does cause a pause, the usual Internet facepalm, and its own fresh set of controversies. Look no further when we see former brown-skinned people taking dips in the bleach (see: baseball all-star Sammy Sosa) or the cringing, appropriating opposite (see: "Blackfishing" and the "transracial" bigoted theatrics of Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krueg). Self-hatred, racist ignorance, or "living their truth"? Never is there any clarity when it comes to self-identifying, never any clarity when it comes to defining the reasons why.

 

[Though I high-key find the insidious "blackfishing" and whatever lie Dolezal and Krueg kept telling themselves truly racist and infuriating. This esp. when these individuals are "rewarded" for their acts whether its a large (often lucrative) following on social media or positions in academics --- positions that could've gone to real Black people with similar or even better qualifications, and aren't liars...]

With America having to reckon with its original sin through the rise of a white supremacist wannabe dictatorial president, The Vanishing Half comes out at time where the definition of identity, of race resonates and confounds more than ever in a society that continues to relish in racism like its 1890, Fascism like it's 1938. For as much as it feels we've made steps forward, we're often still rooted into the ugliest soils of our past. So Bennett exploring identity through that past, while pertinent to now, isn't new as her book joins in similar company with the likes of  Charles W. Chestnutt's The House Behind The Cedars, Fannie Hurst's Imitation of Life, Phillip Roth's The Human Stain, Jesse Redmon Fauset's Plum Bun, Danzy Senna's Caucasia, and --- the definitive tome of being a racial chameleon --- Nella Larsen's Passing. 

For that, I was curious on how Bennett would take such weighty topic on. If she could elevate a socialized phenomenon that still retains a lot of mystery and controversy past its stigmas and generalizations, and do so for a 21st Century audience. Certain people made the choice to change their entire race, made the choice to deny every bit of themselves to become not "the other" and form an identity with hopes to shield themselves from rampant racism and conform to a so-called "status quo" --- that's pretty major. So, consider my expectations great, and made greater with this book being at the top of the bestsellers list and the touts of it "echoing" Morrison's best works.

...and um, yeah, maybe I should've lowered expectations as this book was a big 'nah', with a side order of 'meh'. 

Secondhand Gold Dust Woman

"I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else's muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody. End of fucking story."

Side One

Track One: "Intrigue"

I wasn't drawn to Daisy Jones & The Six by hype. I enjoyed what Taylor Jenkins-Reid did with 2016's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo as it was smarter than the beach read label it was stamped with. It began as a frothy, fictionalized champagne swig of 1950s Hollywood, but unfurled into a layered and sensitive narrative of women and men navigating the rigid sexual and social expectations of the film industry, and the era at large, all of this entertaining, keeping me turning pages. For Daisy Jones & The Six, Reid takes a detour to the 1970s California rock music scene to focus on the quick rise and crashing fall of a fictional rock group, and with that synopsis alone I was expecting such a tale to be in capable hands.

As a music fan, I'm also a fool who believes writing about music isn't akin to "dancing about architecture". That there is more to music, its impact on our culture than just an infectious melody and it should be written as so. Still, so few can capture the pulse and flow of music in text, and so few do it within fiction, so whenever I see a book associated to music on such a level, I'm a moth to a flame, hoping that someone will get it 'right'.

Track Two: "The Shape Of You"

Instead of a straight shot of a biography, Daisy Jones is akin to reading the transcript of a (disjointed) Behind The Music episode. Nestling into a documentary series binge session is how I spend my dross weekends, so this wasn't a deal breaker, in fact, I found it a rather interesting way to set up a story and it fit realistically with the usual payoff of interviewing of a rock band: how everyone would view a person or a situation differently, adding to band lore. As I read thorough Daisy Jones, I began to notice that such a structure lent to some prose limitations.

A cardinal sin of telling instead of showing leaves this book in a limbo of character development. We don't feel these characters, we're told how to feel about them. Motivations for particular actions with our central characters aren't clear, as external characters are just named dropped without much explanation as to who they are. Each voice tends to blend together, they could all be the same person if we weren't told. Without exposition or sensory details, we speed through the band's formation and their rise to fame, all without feeling the struggle. One day they're playing at weddings, the next they have a hit album. The whole thing feels like an thin outline of an idea, a gimmick. None of it feels natural.

Oh, and that weird 'twist' to discover who the interviewer is? Unnecessary.

Track Three: "You're The Inspiration"

Daisy Jones is a captain obvious veiled ode to the turbulent ride of the band Fleetwood Mac with numerous characters that resemble choice band members. Stevie Nicks' drug-addled wild child sprite is reincarnated in Daisy Jones. Lindsey Buckingham begat Billy Dunne as a disgruntled visionary artist who's in an emotional tug-of-war with its enigmatic lead singer. Christine McVie will see herself in Karen Karen, the frustrated keyboardist who has pulled back her femininity to exist in the man's world known as rock n' roll. The easy-going drummer that is Warren Rhodes is Mick Fleetwood. All well and good, but it's lazy as TJR isn't bringing anything of interest to the table with these characters to where we can excuse the striking resemblances.

Not to say one can't be entertained when following the follies of a fictional band. Almost Famous  (what this book wants to be) didn't just follow a fictional '70s rock band and its groupies, but had a young man's coming of age nestled in its story. Bette Midler growls, gripes, and guzzles booze and pills to give off Janis Joplin vibes in an Oscar-nominated performance in The Rose. Eddie and the Cruisers follows a pub band whose moody lead singer goes MIA, and its wrapped up in an intriguing mystery about lost master tapes, and the transition of rock n' roll from the '60s into the '70s. The Five Heartbeats recall the Motown era with a band that echoes the harmonies and hardships of The Temptations. All these films had a neat twist, a change-up that made them familiar, yet different. In short, Daisy Jones is just pure Fleetwood Mac fan fiction that feels more like wish-fulfillment than an actual nuance approach to anatomy of a band.

Track Four: "Message In The Music"

I admit it's a nice touch that at the end of the book we're treated to the full lyrical layout of Aurora, the fictional 'seminal' album of the band that causes them much artistic and personal grief, but big problem: we don't know how these songs are supposed to sound. As someone who has listened to their fair share of 1970s era rock and owns a few of the albums Reid was inspired by, I know of the sound and vibe of the time, but for someone who hasn't a clue the way the music is described would be confusing. Once again a limitation towards writing a book such as this. Music is something you have to hear, feel. These are just words on a page.

Of course, the sound of silence may be resolved when Daisy Jones is given the screen time it was warbled to be from jump since Reese Witherspoon has taken the reigns of an upcoming Amazon Prime streaming project (of course, she wrote the praising cover blurb...🙄), but while Reid does takes great pains to tell us how taxing the album was to create, it's just dead air. At the end, who cares about Aurora when you have Rumours?

Turn me over...

Love Is A Battlefield

Inside Room 186 of the Wagon Wheel Inn, Elise will be kneeling on the carpet, which is orange like a tangerine. Her hair is greasy and braided, and a name---tattooed in calligraphy on her neck---is visible. She keeps both hands on the shotgun---the muzzle pressed into Jamey's breast. 

He'll be sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, hands on thighs. 

"Don't you love me?" he'll ask, quiet and desperate. 

"Elise. Come on. Don't you love me?" 

We begin here at this intense scene, in June of 1987. How we get here is to go back to the year before, where a crass vagabond girl from a troubled lower-class home meets a yuppie pretty boy, and they both fall headfirst into a seedy spiral of lust, obsession, and love.

Of course this familiar set-up is a tale as old as time. Shakespeare has got to be pissed from the grave realizing that nobody has come up with a better story line for doomed lovers --- or he's smiling smug, realizing how much influence he continues to have after all these centuries. Either way, Jardine Libaire's White Fur is touted as a "modernized Romeo and Juliet", and it doesn't take much to figure out the destination of the star-crossed in these pages.