Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

Good Talk, a non-fiction graphic novel memoir by Mira Jacobs, was published in 2018. Mira Jacob is a novelist and illustrator who has published both writings and drawings in Vogue, The New York Times Book Review, and Tin House. She also founded the Master of Fine Arts program at Randolph College. Previously, Mira Jacob wrote The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing. Good Talk has been nominated for several awards, including the Reading Women Award, the PEN Open Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

This guide utilizes the 2018, first edition of the graphic novel.

Plot Summary

Mira Jacob is an East Indian American, who was born in America and whose parents immigrated to the United States in the 1960s. She lives with her husband, Jed, who is Jewish, and their son, Z, in Brooklyn, New York. In her memoir, she chronicles conversations with loved ones, friends, and strangers. Topics include race, religion, sexuality, multiculturalism, family, and love. Mira opens her memoir with a conversation with her son, Z. The year is 2014, and he is six years old. Z has recently discovered Michael Jackson and is obsessed. Learning about Michael Jackson means that Z sees Michael’s skin color change from brown to white over time, and he begins asking his mom, Mira, questions about his own race and skin color.

As a mother, Mira feels lost as to how to respond to his questions the right way. She wants to protect him but knows she cannot, and she wants to instill within him a sense of identity and confidence in his place as an American. She begins consulting friends and family for advice, but this does not lead her anywhere, so she starts reflecting on her own life and the conversations that shaped her views about herself and her country. Mira experienced racialization from a very young age at the hands of her own extended family. Her grandparents and aunts warned her parents that she was not fair, and due to the darkness of her skin she would have a difficult time finding a partner later in life. They provide her with a cream to lighten her skin, which her mother firmly objects to.

When Mira is in fifth grade, she wins an essay writing contest and is invited to read it aloud. A photo of Mira is sent in. Her teacher, Ms. Morrell, takes her that day, and finds that they have been intentionally given a false address so that Mira did not show up in time to read her essay. Ms. Morrell makes several phone calls, gets the correct address, and takes Mira there, demanding she be allowed to read. On the way home, she tells Mira point blank that she is an American like everyone else and to never forget that. Mira never does. However, many people in Mira’s world, including people she dates, works for, and hangs out with, do not see her as an American. At the same time, she feels continuous pressure from her family to find an Indian man to marry, though that is not something she wants unless it is a man she loves.

Mira finds Jed three years after college. They went to the same school in New Mexico, and they find within each other a unique understanding that neither of them has experienced before. They fall in love quickly, and when Jed proposes, the covert racism their families feel comes to light. Mira’s family believes any future children will go to hell for being the son of a Jewish man, and Jed’s family is warm and loving but also lacks a genuine sense of understanding for Mira.

After the Twin Towers fall in 2001, racism against brown people in America escalates to a new level. People are suspicious and want someone to blame, and Mira experiences both direct and indirect discrimination on a regular basis. She is fetishized by dates, refused jobs, physically and sexually assaulted, and accused of being a terrorist. All around New York, posters of missing people from the attacks line the buildings and subways, and Mira realizes it could just as easily have been her. She sees some people react with a newfound kindness and empathy, but most people have the opposite reaction and treat Mira as an “other.” As all these events unfold, Mira’s memoir regularly flashes forward to conversations with her son, all of which seem to be the result of a lengthy ripple that began before any of them were born. Z wonders if his own father is afraid of him, and he wonders about his place in America as a brown person.

When Z is born, Obama is elected. There is a renewed sense of hope that the country is finally uniting, and racism will begin to be replaced by kindness and respect. Mira sees this same sense of newfound hope in Z and knows that if he continues to ask questions and wonder about the world, she can maintain hope that it will improve. Four years later, Trump is elected, and Mira’s hope for the country is dashed once again. With his open slander of Muslim people, Mira finds herself once again in the throes of overt and continuous discrimination. She worries for Z’s future as a brown man in America but knows all she can do is remind him he is an American and that he deserves to be here. Jed’s parents support Trump and vote for him, and this causes a long-lasting rift between the families. Mira feels abandoned by people she considered her parents, and Jed is disappointed that his family does not consider the effects that supporting Trump has on them. By the closing of the memoir, Z is eight years old, and Trump has been president for five months. Mira and Jed decide it is time to visit Jed’s parents and make amends, and hope is once again restored as Mira herself takes her first steps toward unity.