Caucasia: A Novel [Hardcover]

Danzy Senna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 1998

Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston. The sisters are so close that they have created a private language, yet to the outside world they can't be sisters: Birdie appears to be white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at the Afrocentric school they attend. For Birdie, Cole is the mirror in which she can see her own blackness. Then their parents' marriage falls apart. Their father's new black girlfriend won't even look at Birdie, while their mother gives her life over to the Movement: at night the sisters watch mysterious men arrive with bundles shaped like rifles. One night Birdie watches her father and his girlfriend drive away with Cole-they have gone to Brazil, she will later learn, where her father hopes for a racial equality he will never find in the States. The next morning-in the belief that the Feds are after them-Birdie and her mother leave everything behind: their house and possessions, their friends, and-most disturbing of all-their identity. Passing as the daughter and wife of a deceased Jewish professor, Birdie and her mother finally make their home in New Hampshire. Desperate to find Cole, yet afraid of betraying her mother and herself to some unknown danger, Birdie must learn to navigate the white world-so that when she sets off in search of her sister, she is ready for what she will find.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A young girl learns some difficult lessons in Danzy Senna's debut novel Caucasia. Growing up in a biracial family in 1970s Boston, Birdie has seen her family disintegrate due to the increasing racial tensions. Her father and older sister move to Brazil, where they hope to find true racial equality, while Birdie and her mother drift through the country, eventually adopting new identities (Sheila and Jesse Goldman) and settling in a small New Hampshire town.

Birdie/Jesse tries to find her niche in this new world of eye shadow and gossip and boys, but she also wants to remain true to herself and find a common ground between her white and black heritage. She sets out to find her sister and reconnect with that part of her that has been lost for so long; the search takes her far from the settled, safe life she had in New Hampshire to a far more ambiguous, and unsettled, existence, one in which her own definitions of herself become muddled, and her search for her sister leads ultimately to a search for her own true identity.

From School Library Journal

YA-The time is the 1970s, the place is Boston, and the story is of a biracial marriage and the two little girls born of it. Cole, the first child, preferred by both parents, is beautifully black like her father. Birdie, the narrator, is light enough to pass as white. The wife is a "bleeding heart liberal" who has involved herself in civil rights causes against the wishes of her intellectual husband. Finally, the marriage ruptures. A general breakdown ensues when a gun-running political activity precipitates the need for the family to disappear. Cole is taken off to Brazil with her father to begin a new life in a black environment more open to people of color. Birdie is caught up in a series of wrenching deprivals when her mother insists on the need to go underground. There is a change of location, name, appearance, and in Birdie's case, a change of race; she is to pass as white. Money shortages, a complete lack of stability, the loss of a sister almost a twin, a feeling of displacement, the strains of adjustment, no sense of community or relationship, and the growing suspicion that her mother is psychotic make for disturbing adolescent years. Throughout, Birdie keeps alive her need to connect with her father and sister, and faces the knowledge that the liability of her sister's blackness to her mother and her own unwelcome whiteness to her father has brought the family to this sorry situation. It is her courage, her optimism, and her inherent loyalty that brings about a satisfying reunion for the sisters.
Frances Reiher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 353 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (February 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573220914
• ISBN-13: 978-1573220910
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (132 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,597,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every social sciences syllabus should include this book, December 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Caucasia: A Novel (Hardcover)

Born to a white mother and a Black father, both intellectuals and civil rights activists, Birdie Lee and her older sister Cole invent ways to survive the racist tangle of 1970's America. The sisters are so close they speak a secret language they call Elemeno, after their favorite letters in the alphabet. The survival of the imaginary Elemeno people, Cole explains, depends on their ability to move chameleon-like, through their surroundings. To survive they must blend in. Birdie asks, "What is the point of surviving if you have to disappear?" [...] The book's honesty is surprising. In essence, it is the story of a mulatto girls' survival at the expense of her identity. Through Birdie's wise innocence we are invited to wander with her through a labyrinth of stereotypes where she must navigate a path of survival without losing who she is, simultaneously black and white. Senna's story warms the reader to the overdone subject of race without being even the slightest bit preachy. Senna is able to stick a needle into the immovable issue of race and weave a beautiful tale of loss and reality. The answer to the Elemeno's paradox of surviving is answered smoothly and without romance. Senna captures the flavor of time and place so vividly that the reader is left sitting at the table long after the feast with explicit reflection. The characters are funky, quirky and very human. Told in the first person, Birdie is a believably courageous and apt heroine. It is a privilege to visit the world through her eyes and impossible to take your own off the page.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The arduous in-between: black and white/girl and woman, September 13, 2000

By 

thbarry (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caucasia: A Novel (Paperback)

Caucasia was chosen by my book club, and I must say that it is probably the most profound book I've read on being biracial and growing up in race conscious America. As someone who lived in Boston, MA for many years, I was fascinated by Senna's analysis of the race issue in a city that is still extremely racial and extremely segregated. I absolutely adored the relationship between the two sisters. I particularly appreciated the sensitivity with which Senna dealt with the girls growing up with a white liberal mother, who had no concept of day-to-day "black issues," i.e. braiding hair, the necessity of lotion. I would have liked more insight into the parents' initial attraction to one another, but then again, the book was not about how an African-American male in Boston in the 1960s could marry a white woman from an old New England family. My hat goes off to Senna for her marvelous work. Thanks for bringing these issues to the forefront and forcing American readers to wrestle with the tough notion of being biracial.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars who is danzy senna, August 12, 2001

By 

vaio (ny) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Caucasia: A Novel (Paperback)

this is one of the most touching and interestingly insightful stories i have read in a long time. i don't know why it touched me so deeply but it did. i don't know what senna's ethnic background is but if she is not black then she is all the more talented b/c the one thing that struck me most was how accurately she portrayed a black girl's feelings and impressions of certain things. (ex: like when she talked about the kids in new england who only drank and made out at parties while black kids liked to dance and also her impression of samantha and stuart) just little things that i can't think of off hand that made me believe birdie (senna actually) was biracial. i felt like i coould somehow trust her and believe in the authenticity of her emotions.this book was so much more convincing than books written by whites about blacks which strike me as obviously written by an outsider.

this book made me laugh, cry, and shake my head in agreement and disagreement(w/ sandy and deck on some of there ideas about racefor example). senna's writing was smooth and entertaining while still managing to provide food for thought. i just love this story...you should read this book.

hey, when will she be publishing her next work????