When I submitted my first
novel for publication in 2006, several agents, respectfully declining
representation but generous enough to offer feedback, asked whether the
protagonist—a mixed-race ballet dancer based on yours truly—really needed to be
biracial rather than simply Black. If she were Black only, that might
streamline the plot. One agent elaborated: if the main character was going to
have an eating disorder, and feel torn between academia and
the ballet world, then making her mixed—Black and Jewish—just
seemed like too many complications. She had enough problems. But to me, a Black
and Jewish eating disorder survivor torn between ballet and academia? That
didn’t feel complicated at all. It was my normal!
Thankfully, the way we
write and read about race and identity has changed since then. The #ownvoices #weneeddiversebooks movement pushed
the industry to hire diverse editors, to amplify stories about marginalized
people, written by marginalized writers. There are also several
Black/white biracial authors—Danzy Senna, Zadie Smith, Rebecca Walker, James
McBride—who are household names. I am grateful for their centering of biracial-ness—not
in defiance of Blackness or whiteness or monoracial-ness, but as itself: an
amalgamation of perspectives and racial being in a world that asks you to choose
one race or the other, argues with you about your choices, and has a multitude
of thoughts on what you represent. I think it’s fair to guess that all authors
find it most comfortable to write from the perspective of like-me
characters. Each of us is our own square one, after all. Black and Jewish is my
default setting, so that lens becomes the default setting of my fiction.
But there are tripwires
to avoid, writing about my own tiny demographic. If I am writing for a wide
audience, consisting not only of like-me readers, but also of many not
Black/white/Jewish/biracial readers, I want to accurately depict my people free
of stereotypes and negative characterizations. For example, the last thing I
want to do is feed the tragic mulatto stereotype: mired in identity
crisis, both/neither Black and/or white, alienated by each race, perpetually other,
never belonging anywhere. But worrying too much about how you are representing
your marginalized main character’s marginalized group becomes an impossible
constraint. You must shake off that inner scrutiny or your words have no chance
of flowing. All kinds of humans face strife and alienation, make bad decisions,
hurt one another, get messy, act like jerks. We Black/white/Jewish/biracial
people are no more or less tragic than anyone else. Which is to say, some of us
frankly are.
In my second novel, MIRROR
ME, Eddie, the protagonist, is in fact mired in identity crisis, yearning in
vain to belong. Eddie’s journey does indeed cycle through distress and sorrow.
The object of his quest—belonging, love, connection to another who is like him—is
a moving target, mostly embodied by his brother’s fiancée, Lucy, who
alternately toys with, confides in, and professes to love him back. Eddie’s
chase of Lucy brings out the desperate worst in him. He teeters dangerously on
the edge of tragic.
Eddie’s identity issues
stem from being not only biracial, but also adopted, knowing little about his
biological parents. Eddie is also equipped with an alter-ego, Pär, the main
narrator of the book, who alternately observes and takes over Eddie’s actions.
Pär also holds—and withholds from Eddie himself—the secret about Eddie’s origin
and birth circumstances.
Though I was not adopted,
I spent several years as an adoption caseworker at the Spence Chapin agency.
Part of my job was organizing meetings between birth parents and adoptive
families, as well as placing infants in the arms of their adoptive parents. It
was also my job to write what we called a “background,” which was a letter to
every baby including all we could tell them about their birth parents and the
reasons for their choice of adoptive placement.
All Eddie knows about his
birthmother, Britta, is that she was Swedish, tall, blonde and too young to
raise him. His birthfather was African, (at least according to the paperwork
and the birthmother’s story) but no one ever bothered to learn where in that
vast continent he came from. And it’s the ‘70s. No one encouraged the Ashers to
celebrate either of Eddie’s cultures of origin, the way we adoption caseworkers
did in the ‘90s.
Though my experience with
adoption is largely professional, I have lived multiracial identity for over
five decades. I was born to a white, Jewish mother and a Black father. What I
share with Eddie is the experience of walking through the world under the
umbrella of my mother’s whiteness, taking certain privileges for granted as we
ran errands, rode buses, hailed taxis. I attracted little attention until Mom
let go of my hand and I became, in the eyes of strangers, a small Black girl,
out of place and all alone. It was different with my father, to whom I bore a
stronger resemblance. Whether we visited his beloved barbershop in Harlem or
attended a book party at Viking Press, where he was an art director, it was
plainly visible that I belonged to and with him.
Unlike Eddie, I grew up
valuing Blackness and understanding that it was part of me. Unlike Joanne,
Eddie’s mother, who is always telling him to watch out for the Black kids (she
doesn’t say “the other Black kids”), my mother valued and respected Blackness
as well. And, while my mother was not religious, Jewishness was part of our
home and my identity. My parents taught me about the joys of each culture, but
also about the racism and antisemitism they each had faced, the harassment they
had endured as an interracial couple in the ‘50s and ‘60s. In this respect I
grew up immersed in who I was, but as an only child, I was often alone to make
sense of it. It is no surprise that many of my closest friends are also of
mixed race. We’ve all had different experiences of being of two races,
depending on our appearances—how white or Black we look to others—our closeness
with or rejection by family members, the places where we were raised.
I made sure that Eddie was
not the only biracial character in MIRROR ME. Through his interactions and
relationships with the other mixed characters, Lucy and Andy, in different
ways, Eddie finds what he’s looking for—more or less. (No spoilers here!)
Lucy is the femme fatale
of the book—beautiful, at least to Eddie—but cruel, due to her main childhood
trauma: the suicide of her mother. Unable to trust others, Lucy is fickle in
love, far better at receiving than giving. Lucy is drawn to every man who pays attention to
her, and Eddie is no exception. Eddie is drawn to their sameness, her
girl-version-of-Eddie-ness. Their relationship is more spiritual than sexual,
but she needs him, leads him on, while reminding him that she belongs to his
brother. She is also an opportunist. Being lighter-skinned than her monoracial
Black half-sisters affords Lucy unearned privileges—special treatment from
their father, a spot in the corps de ballet of a prestigious but
racially monochromatic dance company.
Andy, on the other hand,
represents a more positive and joyful existence. Raised in Western
Massachusetts by his white single mother, Andy is unaware of his father’s
identity and deprived of any significant exposure to Black people. At the age
of ten, Andy is sent to study dance in New York. Taken in by the Wynter family,
Andy is enthralled by their world of lush, abundant Black culture—music, art,
dance. Andy thrives, embracing it all, especially once he becomes a teen and finds
the dance world a safe, hospitable place to be gay and out. Yet even with
Andy’s joyous embrace of life, dance, and his biracial and queer identities, he
faces heartbreak: losing the man he loves to none other than Lucy herself.
But personal loss and
turmoil make Eddie, Lucy, and Andy human, not tragic. When a character
moves through and learns from their pain, as opposed to getting stuck in it—
when the tragedy is transitory, resolved as the narrative comes together—it’s
only one leg in the rollercoaster ride that makes a story. By demonstrating a
range of outlooks, experiences and emotional responses to life’s foibles, I strive
to avoid stereotypes amongst my biracial characters, hopefully showcasing the
multifaceted humanity we all belong to, each of us on our individual journeys. While our mosaic selves may be complex, they
are not complicated. Instead, the parts that distinguish and connect us add
richness to the stories of how we all move through the world.
DEBS: Reds and readers, Lisa will be checking in on the comments, so do say "Hi," and ask her more about her book! I am especially intrigued by Eddie's alter ego! (And the ballet!)
Lisa Williamson Rosenberg is the author
of Mirror
Me (December 3, 2024; Little A) and Embers on the Wind
(August 1, 2022; Little A). She is a former ballet dancer and psychotherapist
specializing in depression, developmental trauma, and multiracial identity. Her
essays have appeared in Literary Hub, Longreads, Narratively, Mamalode,
and The Common. Her fiction has been published in the Piltdown
Review and in Literary Mama, where Lisa received a
Pushcart nomination. A born-and-raised New Yorker and mother of two college
students, Lisa now lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband and dog.
You can visit Lisa online at lisawrosenberg.com
Bluesky: @lwroseauthor.bsky.social
IG: @lisawrose.author (and on the linktree you can access all my platforms)
Facebook: Lwrose.author
Here's more about Mirror Me:
A psychiatric patient’s desperate search for answers
reveals peculiar memories and unexpected connections in a twisty and
mind-bending novel of love, family, betrayal, and secrets.
Eddie Asher arrives at
Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his
brother’s fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can’t
imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn’t been himself lately.
Eddie’s anxiety is
nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from
truths he’s too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär’s increasing
sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in
dissociative identities. The psychiatrist is Eddie’s best chance for piecing
together the puzzle of what really happened to Lucy and to understanding his
inexplicable memories of another man’s life.
But Montgomery’s methods
trigger a kaleidoscope of memories that Pär can’t contain, bringing Eddie
closer to an unimaginable truth about his identity.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: This is the start of the hardest part of winter. Christmas is well and truly past, the excited glow of setting new goals and planning for the upcoming year has dimmed (I see you, already skipping out on the gym) and most of the country is bone-achingly cold, covered in ice and snow, or on fire. The earliest southern gardens won't see new life for at least another month, while in the northern states, we've got three more months to get through before the forsythia blooms.
1970s disaster movies - I honestly can't explain this, except to say I want to watch something that's exciting and action packed, but that doesn't get my heart rate up. I tried watching Carry On, but seeing Justin Bateman be bad was just too distressing. You know what's the opposite of distressing? George Kennedy, who was in every disaster movie of the decade. The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, Airport - you know it's all going to be okay with manly men like Chuck Heston and Steve McQueen on the job. (Also, they're always paired with women obviously fifteen years younger - was that a 70s thing I missed?)
Shea butter moisturizer - As soon as my forced hot air heat kicks in, my skin becomes dryer than Arrakis. In fact, I could use an opposite stillsuit, that wrings every drop of moisture out of the air and, I don't know, circulates it all over my body. Until some smart kid invents that, large tubs of shea butter are my best friends. I slather it on until I slide out of bed every time I roll over. Sadly, I have yet to figure out how to moisturize my back below the neck and above the waist - you know, that part where you yell, "Honey, come get my back for me!"
But
I can't do that with Virginia's two-year-old wonder kitty, can I ? So
after approximately $570,000,000,000 (okay, not that much, but it has
been enough to buy a mid-range used car) AND spending the past 15 weeks
living in a large dog crate on a table next to my desk (have to keep the
cat company, or he yowls) I'm happy to say Walker the Bionic Cat is
doing much better. His surgeon thinks he'll be able to travel to the
Netherlands with Virginia in early February, and if he leaps off her
balcony into the canal below, it'll be her look-out, not mine.
