Questions About Recitatif

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Recitatif, please sign up.

Answered Questions (1)

MLK Jr. has been dead 54 years, nearly, and here we are STILL reading about racism and living with racism. Why does this just feel like another book to make White People feel like they are doing something about racism, when all they are actually doing is reading about it, again?

Mark I'm a white guy who grew up in Georgia and Kentucky in the 1960s and '70s. I (barely) recall the JFK's assassination and the big marches before it (ma…moreI'm a white guy who grew up in Georgia and Kentucky in the 1960s and '70s. I (barely) recall the JFK's assassination and the big marches before it (mainly from adults' reactions). Reports of and reaction to RFK's and MLK's assassinations are sharper in my memories. Then I experienced bussing and 2.5 years of school riots, including being attacked. After all that — maybe because of all that — this story resonated with me. It brought some of my personal *social navigation* and *worldview forming* dilemmas from that time back up quite sharply. It takes effective story crafting to do that. On top of that, Morrison achieved an impressive feat by making race a central element of a story in which you can't tell what anyone's race is. As someone learning to create effective stories, that impressed me.(less)

flag

Unanswered Questions

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions

Learn more