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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A refreshingly honest memoir about growing up biracial, February 14, 2007
Black men writing about their Jewish mothers seems to be a trend as of late (think James McBride's THE COLOR OF WATER). Nevertheless, this book reads fresh to me, perhaps because of the to-the-day decade between ACE OF SPADES and the parenthesized McBride account. My memory of THE COLOR OF WATER was beginning to fade, and David Matthews's memoir has stepped up to take its place as the biracial book most present in my mind.
The story is set around Matthews's childhood and young adult years in Baltimore, trying to find his identity in a black/white world. His Jewish mother leaves him when he is just a baby, and he is raised by his submissive/activist father. "Black" to Matthews is a disease, a melanin destined for a life of pain and destruction. His young self takes a pessimistic stance against the black race's ability to become equal with their white counterparts in American society, and he therefore tries to separate himself from this second-class life and from the father he sees as weak and ineffectual.
But things aren't that easy. The white side accepts him only when his blackness is beaten down so strongly that they don't catch the whiff of its scent. His exotic features raise questions and eyebrows, and he forever has to squelch one side of himself in order for the other side to live peaceably in his truculent world. In an area of town where the privileged whites are becoming the minority --- and where the blacks are taking over in number, force and resentment of their status --- his part of town does not allow for subtleties of color or of a mixed-race identity.
Matthews's vocabulary is huge, and even the college-educated will find numerous words that they have never come across before. His breadth of the English language put me to shame to such a degree that I began jotting down the unfamiliar words, giving up after two pages because it distracted too much from the flow of the story. Luckily for me, and thus for the majority of readers, his incredible vocabulary won't render the story incomprehensible. For the most part, these terms are used in such a context that the individual can gather their meaning or at least understand the sentence even if the words were taken out.
Matthews's honesty in this memoir is refreshing. He doesn't hide his prejudice; he only explains the logicality of why it existed in the first place. His plethora of self-contradictions rings true to a biracial teenager in the midst of finding himself. In fact, all the characters are presented as the well-rounded individuals they undoubtedly are, each on their own path to self-realization and each with their own views of the world.
ACE OF SPADES has special significance for me because I, too, am biracial --- my father is black and my mother white. Reading this book is like reading about myself, and I'm sure the same will be true for every other biracial American, of which there is an increasingly large number. It will, however, resound the most strongly with those of us who are of Matthews's generation and older, since being of a mixed racial heritage is now becoming trendy in and of itself. The memoir speaks of an America at a crossroads --- destined to find a new, less polarized identity for itself. This crossroads is exactly what Matthews faces and overcomes.
--- Reviewed by Reviewed by Shannon Luders-Manuel
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
And now, for something completely different..., February 10, 2007
I will try to describe this book, but it is a very difficult book to describe. If you like, you can skip what I have to say, and refer back to the 4 stars I have given it--with the understanding that I refuse to give 5 stars to anything on principal. This book gets close, however. Ace of Spades is a memoir about the David Matthews' experiences as a "mixed" (white looking) boy and young man in the depressed black neighborhoods of Baltimore. The story is about how he fakes a "Jewish" identity, rather than live as a black boy... an identity he views as the lowest rung on the social totem pole in 1980's America.
This book is in fact about an America many people will recognize since the end of the viet nam war, until right now in our nation's history. Matthews' personal story seems to weave in and out of major historical events and turning points in our culture; and he deftly manages to loop major world events right back into his solitary journey. Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, The Six Day War--these people and places telescope into Matthews' injured, wry tale of abandonment. The author never met his real life Jewish mother, so his "Jewish" identity-grab is a painful (and painfully funny) act of self-sabotage and cultural betrayal, that reminded me of the character Coleman Silk in "The Human Stain" by Philip Roth. I had to remind myself that these excruciating (it's like watching a car wreck in slow-motion) situations were someone's life, and I felt the necessity of his choices at every turn. The world he describes, even if he imagines it, seems like a very scary and confining place.
I never forgive him for his actions--for example burning a cross(even this scene he wrings a laugh from)--but I understand them.
His writing style is long and languid, or short and punchy. Sometimes it's lyrical, and sometimes it punches you in the gut. It is refreshing to read someone with a style that speaks to a mastery of the English language, rather than a mastery of being stylish for the sake of it. Buy a good dictionary. You will need one.
This book is so difficult to categorize... It is foremost simply a wonderful/terrible tale of growing up, not so different from Jean Shepherd, or even Augusten Burroughs or Frank McCourt. There are moments of biting social observation, a few of which I could do without, but most of which were either humorous or insightful, usually both.
There are quirky footnotes, which take getting used to, but they are so related to the themes being explored, you almost begin to miss them when too many pages go by without them--and in fact start looking for them, kind of like a prize in a box of cereal.
There's even a jarring transition into a scene written in movie format---and it gives a real immediacy and cinematic quality to the chapter, almost like floating between a book and a movie. Some people may find it gimmicky, but by the time it appears in the book, there's been well-earned flourishes, so even if I can tell he's reaching, it seems like he's reaching for something larger than his own small, scary, story.
There is a brutal and beautiful honesty to this book, and I would be lying if I said that parts of it were not ugly. The author seems to spare nothing in his search for self. There is no fault he will not expose to the light of day, gambling (and winning in my case) on the fact that when any redemtion comes he will have earned it and overcome a lot to get there. I have no expertise in racial matters, this book was left on my nightstand by my fiance and I picked it up. There maybe people of mixed-race backgrounds who feel more deeply some of the things Matthews talks about/lives through, but this book is actually about pain, loss, motherhood, fatherhood, sexual immaturity, sexual maturity, and black and white and Jewish identities in America. I like books that aim high even if they sometimes miss, and yes this book sometimes misses. But when he scores, it is dead center bullseye. Highly, highly recommended.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating Memoir, February 10, 2007
This memoir follows David Matthews as he grows up the child of a white Jewish mother (who abandoned him) and a black father. What I love about this memoir is the way Matthews examines his life with such openness and intensity. It isn't simply an memoir about identity, but one that brings the reader into the confusing emotional world of Matthews' childhood.
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