The Book Keeper by Julia McKenzie Munemo

            One of my classmates from “Stonecoast,” University of Southern Maine’s MFA program in creative writing, published a book this year. I just finished it and found it prophetically timely and quite powerful. No small part of the story is that Munemo, a white American woman, fell in love with and married a black Zimbabwean man. But this complex memoir goes beyond the struggles that come with a mixed-race marriage and raising boys, whom the world perceives as black, in the racially-charged environment of today’s USA. The author’s web of history also includes a parent’s suicide, clashing Jewish and Protestant ancestry, and learning that part of her father’s livelihood came from writing pulpy slave-porn novels. Munemo goes to great lengths to discover, untangle, and reconcile her family’s past with her own identity, her own flaws, and her path forward. There are no pat conclusions, but a great deal of relevant food for thought for any reader interested in our society’s systemic racist past and present.
           
My 60th year in 60,000 words
Day 328: 164 words, TOTAL = 53,257; 6,743 remaining