Customer Reviews

Black Girl/White Girl

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In "Black Girl White Girl" we find Joyce Carol Oates in familiar territory: Genna ("I hated the possibility of being perceived as a spoiled, privileged white girl..."),from a wealthy family yearning for the friendship of her college roommate, Minette: a black woman ("Her face fascinated me, it was the most striking face I'd seen close up....sharp boned...with dark skin that looked stretched to bursting...you felt that, if you dared to touch that skin, your fingers would dart away, burnt.").
Genna goes out of her way to be kind and considerate of Minette often doing simple courtesies for her but to no avail. Minette, coming from her conservative African American background is wary and suspicious. ("From the start Minette was an enigma to me. A riddle and a dazzlement".)
As with many of Oates' heroines, Genna is uncomfortable in her own skin and seeks the approval of others in order for her to accept herself. Genna is emotionally empty: she is always on the lookout for someone to fill the gaping void that is her heart and soul.
As is always the case in Oates' work, family plays a big part in "BGWG" ("...the family is the locus of obsession. The family is about possessing and being possessed.")
Genna's family life is anything but simple and straightforward.
Her mother Veronica lords over her with absolute authority on the one hand and a bottle of Absolut in the other. Her father, Max always seemingly on the lam for his Civil Rights activities is unavailable physically and emotionally and only makes guest appearances in Genna's life. Both Veronica and Max are thrilled that Genna has the opportunity to room and become acquainted with a living breathing African American. Genna's heart is in the right place. It's just that she has no experience making friendships. She tries too hard and that simply drives Minette farther and farther away. Not that Minette is perfect by any means. She too is flawed but a much bigger mystery than is Geena. ("Always there was a curious aloofness to Minette Swift.")It is also through Minette that Oates once again exhibits her fascination for and fright of compulsive eating. Minette sneaks food into her room, eats in her room alone and generally uses food as a way to hide from others and avoid facing her peceived (by her) inadequacies.
Then a series of tacit attacks begins: racial slurs are written on the door of Genna and Minette's room, Minette's textbooks are stolen and reappear marked up and shabby. The attacks escalate and Minette is pushed down a flight of stairs. Who is behind these acts?
Oates is covering a lot of territory here: racial prejudice as well as racial entitlement, the family as a base of encouragement or discouragement, the college campus as a microcosm of life and on and on. "Black Girl White Girl" takes us back to that part of Oatesiana called Obsession and though it is not one of Oates' better works it certainly deserves your time being that it comes from one of our finest contemporary writers.

This book was very unrealistic and possibly insulting. I only say "possibly" because I'm not sure what exactly Oates was trying to say with this story. The main characters were too caricatured for me to feel much for them. Genna was just too, too guilty and too desperate to be liked by a roommate who didn't want a new friend. And Minette - how was she a real person? The only way I could see her as a living, breathing human being would be to believe that she suffered from some very serious mental problems. Why make her so unpleasant? She arrogantly disliked everyone, spoke strangely ("Scuseme"), ate obsessively, and even stopped bathing. We are also to believe that she faked her own racist harrassment - the kind of thing a person would do for attention. But Minette seemed to want no attention at all. Ever. From anyone. And she didn't even do well in school. Yet everyone, from the RA to the professors, bent over backwards to accomodate her because she was a black scholarship student. I'm not sure what Oates is trying to say here. Was this the story of a girl with mental problems, or an arrogant, dirty, greedy black girl who wasn't smart enough for the scholarship she had, who manufactured racism when she didn't find any (in the 70s) and her long-suffering, guilt-ridden, white roommate who just wanted a friend?

As the title suggests, the novel is comprised of two stories conjoined. Genna Meade reconstructs her freshman year at college and the events culminating in the death of her former roommate for a motive not disclosed until the novel's end. Genna is the white, wealthy offspring of hippie-radicals and Quaker ancestors; her black roommate Minette is the pious, self-possessed daughter of a Washington, D.C. preacher. A compelling mystery unfolds as Genna's hesitant narration reveals a tale of personal and political tumult in the post-Vietnam era. The pervasive theme is good intentions gone awry. What seems clearly "black and white" in the novel's beginning becomes more a study of shadows, as Genna avoids, vaguely considers, then finally faces the morally grey aspects of her life and times.

First and foremost, was anyone else irritated by Minette Swift's omnipresent 'SCUSEME????'. Does she not know any other words?

Moving on...

What drew me to this book was the riveting synopsis on the book jacket. I expected a discussion (exploration?) of race relations between two young women of drastically different backgrounds in 1970's collegiate America and their collective movement toward understanding and friendship (before Minette's untimely death, of course). The descriptive scales are way out of balance in this book; the surface of Minette's life and that of her family are barely scratched, while Genna's is picked through with a fine-toothed comb. The book focuses heavily on white girl Genna's dysfunctional family, constantly hammering into the reader's head her father Max's valiant legal crusading on behalf of anti-war activists and people of color and his all-too-frequent absences. That's all well and good, but how about paying a little more attention to Minette? After all, isn't she supposed to figure prominently in this text? Was she experiencing depression before she came to college, or did her troubles begin at Schuyler? And if they did begin at college, what was the impetus? How about elaborating on what put this obviously intelligent and pious young woman on the path to depression? I wish Ms. Oates had expanded upon this segment of the plot and delved a little deeper into this character.

What a disappointment. I'm about to start on "The Gravedigger's Daughter"...here's hoping for a more riveting read!

Black Girl / White Girl is the story of two 1974 Schuyler College freshmen roommates who could not have possibly been more wrong for each other. Gemma Meade, on the one hand, is a descendant of the college founder and has been raised by ultra-liberal parents to feel somewhat guilty about the privileged circumstances of the Meade family. She feels compelled to prove that she does not consider herself to be better than her black roommate. Minette Swift, on the other hand, is a black teenager who has been raised by her ultra-conservative preacher father to be suspicious of the motives and objectives of whites who go out of their way to befriend her. She sees Gemma's offer of friendship as more condescending than genuine.

Both girls arrive at Schuyler College somewhat flawed by the families in which they were raised. Gemma's father, an attorney who not only defended Civil Rights activists and terrorists of the day but hid them when they were on the run and helped to fund their illegal activities, was away from home as much as he was there. Her mother, an alcoholic ex-hippie herself, was more a burden to Gemma than she was a parent. Minette's father, a "prominent" Washington D.C. preacher, raised her to disdain those who did not share her strong Christian beliefs and to find racist tendencies in others where they did not always exist. He was a proud and articulate man who spoke his mind at all times, quick to see "racism" in the words of others.

Reading Black Girl / White Girl is a bit like simultaneously watching two train wrecks. Predictably, Minette Swift becomes the victim of racist taunts despite the fact that she is not the only minority student living in her dormitory. She is so unlikable, in fact, that another black student is suspected of being involved in the incidents that occur. Gemma's efforts to shield Minette from the taunting ultimately backfire and cause as much harm as good for both girls. At the same time, Gemma's father is being pursued by the FBI who suspect him of being more than a defense attorney and who suspect that Gemma knows the details.

Joyce Carol Oates has created two memorable characters, unlikable as they may be, who reflect the times in which they lived. The 1970s were filled with guilt ridden whites who were very likely seen by blacks as naive and condescending when it came to the racial issues of the day. The two groups were a product of the '60s era that produced both peace loving, doper hippies and militant blacks and they found themselves working together in the '70s, not always comfortably, in the still relatively young Civil Rights movement. In the world of Joyce Carol Oates, good intentions and innocence can be a dangerous combination and Black Girl / White Girl is no exception to her rule.

I wnated to like this book because Ms. Oates is a wonderful writer and the book jacket seemed compelling, but the more I read the less I liked the characters and questioned the believibilty of the "victim", who is pegged as an intelligent black Merit scholar but comes off no more than a satisfactory, snooty student who is slowly losing her mind. I have doubts about her abuse and believe she is suffering from Munchausens Syndrome but towards the end of the book it didn't even matter. Gemma, the white roommate is so kind and long-suffering, desperate and lonely, partly due to this roommate and partly due to her insane upbring, but I tired of her as well. Read it if you must, but don't expect too much.

BLACK GIRL/WHITE GIRL

I feel somewhat like a traitor giving a book by JCO only one star. After all, she is one of my favorite authors of all time and a true genius! However, for me, this book fell flat.

Meet Genna, white girl, and Minette, black girl. They are roomies in college. Their fellow students do not like Minette, Genna tries to become her friend, she keeps getting rebuffed. Minette gets harassed and tragedy follows. The end.

That is what I got out of this book. Way too much of this book centered on Genna's old, political, hippie, parents. I did not care for Genna's parents, I did not care for all the past political history of her parents.

I truly tried to enjoy and like this book. I wish the book would have gone in the direction of Genna and Minette. However, much to my dismay, the two girls and their lives were barely touched upon.

I know every book I pick up will not be a winner. That is the beauty of reading and life in general -- everyone has a different opinion of a book and while some people loved this book, for me, it was hard to enjoy. However, Ms. Oates is one of the best and I will gladly, happily, and definitely look forward to reading all of her books. She has quite a list of accomplishments and I cannot wait to venture into the next one.

Thank you!

Pam

Truth/lies, past/present, friend/enemy-- Joyce Carol Oates revels in these and other opposites in her novel Black Girl White Girl. Set in the year 1990, but told as a flashback to the year 1974, main character Genna Meade, recounts the tragic events that lead to the untimely death of her roommate, Minette Swift. Genna, offspring of a radical, political father and a wounded, drug-crazed mother, pieces together the events of her father's background mingled with the disastrous racial attacks against Minette that ultimately contribute to her death.
In 1974, Genna and Minette enter as freshmen to an elite liberal arts school, Schuyler College, near Philadelphia. The bespectacled Minette, hardly acknowledges her roommate, Genna. Constantly muttering "'Scuse me," she reacts to Genna only if necessary. Genna, so desperately wishing to befriend Minette, continually indulges her in kindnesses. As Minette physically and emotionally spirals downward, the protections that Genna volunteers to her end in tragedy.
The other characters in Black Girl White Girl contribute to the themes in the text. Genna's parents, Maximilian Elliot Mead (Mad Max) and Veronica Hewett-Meade, drift in and out of Genna's life as they always had as she grew-up in their rambling yet shameful home in Chadds Ford. Max's political antics and beliefs, even though a civil defense lawyer, provide an extreme, unconventional childhood for Genna. Veronica suffers the trauma of a life of drug abuse and spousal separateness. Because of this, she acts abrupt, child-like and needy. Genna plays more of a "parent role" in this book than her parents. Just who are we responsible for in our life?
The only parental relations Minette seems to have with her mother involve frequent, lengthy phone calls to the campus. Her father, Reverend Virgil Swift, is preacher for the World Tabernacle of Jesus Christ. Ironically, Minette, needing her father's spiritual guidance desperately, only has a poster proclaiming "I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE" and a white leather-bound Bible for guidance. This is the central misfortune in the story; these characters all cry out to each other but they never ease their wants and needs.
Post Vietnam America racial tensions and civil rights flow throughout this work. The great grandparents of Genna Meade and founders of Schuyler College were sympathetic to the "people of color," yet Haven House, the residence hall to Minette and Genna, offers no solace to either girl. Minette experiences racial harassment and Genna also suffers from her past history, not racially, but emotionally, because of her parents. Oates clearly defines the separateness of Minette and Genna due to racial/social backgrounds, but both are girls. Is she suggesting that they really are very much alike in their desires, wants, and needs? What really are the truths for each girl within the narrative? What lies are part of these truths?
Carol Joyce Oates creates a story in Black Girl White Girl worth reading because stylistically it interests; the use of language is succinct, the characters are both outrageous yet believable, and it is of interest in a historical context. It is a tragic story because Genna, after the death of Minette realizes that she, between choosing happiness and duty, must choose duty.

A twisting story about two roommates - one black, one white - in the 1970s. This might not be Oates' best work, but it was an engaging story, nonetheless.

I had high hopes for this book based on the synopsis but it was long,uninteresting and anti-climatic. It seemes as if the author had a great idea for a book and suddenly developed writer's block. It's difficult to tell what the story is about at some point. The nut-job Black roommate or the whiny White girl, story teller. Both characters are absurd and unrealistic. Very disappointed.