The Color Of Water — My Review

In thinking about my own story and how I might draft a memoir, I was encouraged to read James McBride’s The Color of Water, in which he tells two overlapping and interconnected stories. His own story recounts growing up a mixed child with a Black father and a white mother, while the second story is his mother’s, a white woman who raised 12 mixed children (from two different fathers) in abject poverty, without her family or any support from them.

His mother’s story of perseverance is truly remarkable, and so is that of her 12 children, all of whom make it through college and become successful professionals.

As McBride’s memoir unfolds, he starts with a chapter about the story of his mother, which he clearly had to pry out of her, and then alternates his story and her story as subsequent chapters, intertwining both to show how she influenced him while raising him and all his siblings.

The first scene of the book describes his mother’s mourning. In her grief she takes up bicycle riding, on a “huge old clunker blue with white trim, with big fat tires, huge fenders and a battery-powered horn built into the middle of the frame” that his stepfather had found on the street a few months before his death.

This embarrasses McBride, and instead of riding a bicycle the author deals with the loss of his stepfather by dropping out of school and getting involved in small time drug and violent crime.

Naturally this is the opposite of what his mother expects from her children. She had decided that their path to a better life is through education and Jesus.

The half of the book that tells his mother’s story provides the family history of how her Jewish parents were arranged into a loveless marriage and then moved to America. They traveled from synagogue to synagogue as her father sought work as a rabbi, until he decided to put down roots in Suffolk, Virginia and set up a store, which eventually became a successful business. He was a domineering presence who established an almost slave-like control over his family.

As a teenager she falls in love with another teen, who is Black and whom she has to hide from her family. He gets her pregnant, and then, while she is away getting an abortion, he gets another girl (Black) pregnant girl whom he ends up marrying. McBride further recounts the traumas she lived through in her father’s house, until she leaves and moves in with relatives of her mother in New York.

Her New York relatives give her a job, but nothing else. During this time there she finds herself drawn to Harlem. In her own words she reveals, “Maybe because I’d lived around black folk most of my life, or because I’d heard so much about it. In those days, nobody in New York City went to the Village to have fun. Harlem was the place.”

She goes back and forth between the two worlds, almost being drawn into prostitution to support herself in the process. In the end the love and support of the author’s father gives her the strength to make a full break from her biological family. She ultimately leaves them, and drawing strength from their church, she and her first husband begin to build a life in the Black community.

In addition to the uncompromising, crazy, and overcrowded home that his mother built — and relocated a multiple times — much of the story is how the author returned to the path of education to eventually become a writer and musician. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College, a Master’s from Columbia University, and found a unique way to blend his two passions, music and writing, to create his life. McBride also shares finding his identity, discovering his Jewish roots (while doing research for this book), and blending his identities into the person he grew up to be.

An inspiring read, this book is not for the faint of heart. It portrays some of the ugliest and most unfortunate parts of human life. Racism, sexual abuse, abortion, premature death, and other unsavory topics all make an appearance in this story.

Life can be ugly. But despite all the bad you encounter in this memoir, you will leave with the faith that there are people who can overcome the hardest struggles and still manage to create the life that they want and find ways of coping with the pain of life. Which in turn will give you the hope that you too can be one of those people.

As the book unfolds, you will feel the different and conflicting sides of his mother. She is unforgiving and patient, strong and needy, demanding and kind, depending on the situation that she finds herself in. You learn why she is how she is, how she got hurt, and how she grew to be strong, and you feel her pain and her triumphs.

But her story is not the only story of growth and evolution. You will also experience James’s pain as he loses his stepfather, rebelled, got back on track and learns about his Jewish heritage, eventually finding his place in the world as a writer and musician.

I was also touched by how much I could relate to the characters. I was raised as one of the few African Americans in a predominantly white area. Rachel Shilsky (the author’s mother) was raised as one of the few Jews in the town where she grew up, and her son James McBride was the only one he knew who had a white mother.

Many different feelings and struggles come up when you are “different” from those around you. These are expressed beautifully through key moments in this family story. Moments like finding a friend (or lover) who doesn’t care about your racial difference, or getting in fights, and even rebelling from the path your parents want for you. If you have ever felt like you were the “other” you will certainly find passages in this book that articulate how you have felt and remind you that you are not alone.

Additionally, this book movingly captures the complexities of life. The beauty and the ugliness. The love and the hate. People who accept others and people who only care for themselves. And how they all have to interact on this crazy planet that we call Earth.

And it provides some historical context to how far we have come. This story took place just a few short decades ago. I myself am part of a mixed marriage and the world is much more accepting now that it was. But, it is crucial to remember, that while things have slowly been improving, we still have much progress to make in America when it comes to race and equality.

For me, the most compelling reason to read this book is to see that you can change yourself. You can set a goal and work to achieve it. You can choose an identity that is different from the one you were born with. There will be struggles but you can overcome them. You can build a new life for yourself and for your children.

And of course your children inherit the right to do the same.

Changing the world starts with changing ourselves. Just like the color of water you can change too.