GOOD TALK ...hits a little too close to home

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00:45:41

December 18th, 2020

45 mins 41 secs

Season 2

Your Hosts

About this Episode

Have you ever wondered what a conversation would be with your bi-racial kid, reflecting on everything that's going on in the world - the good, the bad, and the ugly? Have you ever had a conversation about race with your spouse of another race?

This week, we're talking about what might have been Raman's all time favorite BOOK of 2018. Mira Jacob's autobiographical memoir "Good Talk." Jacob - of Indian descent was already an acclaimed author for her debut NON-GRAPHIC novel - "The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing" - is a novel about a patriarch who starts talking to ghosts. It's a heartbreaking story that recounts with some realism, a daughters relationship with her immigrant father in the last days of his life. ...and their wacky extended Indian family.

But for GOOD TALK - Jacob went full-on reality - depicting in a uniquely simple graphic retelling of conversations about work and life with her young son, her Jewish husband, her parent-pleasing brother, her Indian parents, her extended family in India, her two best friends, and her very Trumpy in-laws.

This book - all told through a lens of race and gender - hit some of us a little too close to home (eyes...leaking), which is probably why we loved it so much. So Raman thought it might be a good idea to bring back friend of the Pod, Sharon Lee Thony, Raman's co-hostess with the mostess on his OTHER podcast - "Modern Minorities" - where they have conversations on work and life thru the lens of race and gender.

Break out the painful memories and Kleenex...