Essays describe how the author's experiences as an Indian American, the wife of a white Christian woman, and the mother of an adopted black son have been challenged by rigid cultural family norms.
Mehra's nuanced and thought-provoking work resonates on multiple levels—from the immigrant experience and race relations to accepting one's sexuality, adoption, parenthood, and more. Excellent for readers interested in family and issues of identity in America.
Many of the essays cover the same biographical content (the death of her father, her early relationship with her wife, the adoption of her son), but they mine deep and distinct emotional terrain. Mehra delves unflinchingly into each of her identities and their sharp intersections ... Mehra’s prose is clear and heartfelt whether she’s writing as daughter, queer, wife, mother or teacher ... Readers may finish these pages a bit freer themselves.
It’s rare to come across an essay collection that is unequivocal in addressing the systemic norms that impact identity while also being compelling and incisive about the relationships that form us ... Mehra’s memoir achieves this by recounting her experience as a queer woman, and as a child of Indian immigrants in a segregated Southern town, and in addressing her own internalized biases while being transparent about the challenges of raising a Black child in America ... Through frank, clear prose Mehra explores what it means to be a part of a family that the world does not often recognize.
