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Skinfolk: A Memoir
Could a picturesque white house with a picket fence save the world? What if it was filled with children drawn together from around the globe? And what if, within the yard, the lines of kin and skin, of family and race, were deliberately knotted and twisted? In 1970, a wild-eyed dreamer, Bob Guterl, believed it could.
Bob was determined to solve, in one stroke, the problems of overpopulation and racism. The charming, larger-than-life lawyer and his brilliant wife, Sheryl, a former homecoming queen, launched a radical experiment to raise their two biological sons alongside four children adopted from Korea, Vietnam, and the South Bronx—the so-called war zones of the American century. They moved to rural New Jersey with dreams of creating what Bob described as a new Noah’s ark, filled with “two of every race.”
While the venture made for a great photograph, with the proverbial “casseroles and potato chips out for everyone,” the Brady Brunch façade began to crack once reality seeped into the yard, adding undue complexity to the ordinary drama of a big family. Neighbors began to stare. Vacations went wrong. Joy and laughter commingled with discomfort and alienation. Familial bonds inevitably buckled. In the end, this picture-perfect family was no longer, and memories of the idyllic undertaking were marred by tragedy.
In lyrical yet wrenching prose, Matthew Pratt Guterl, one of the children, narrates a family saga of astonishing originality, in which even the best intentions would prove woefully inadequate. He takes us inside the clapboard house where Bob and Sheryl raised their makeshift brood in a nation riven then as now by virulent racism and xenophobia. Chronicling both the humor and pathos of this experiment, he “opens a door to our dreams of what the idea of family might make possible.”
In the tradition of James McBride’s The Color of Water, Skinfolk exposes the joys and constraints of love, blood, and belonging, and the persistent river of racial violence in America, past and present.
Bob was determined to solve, in one stroke, the problems of overpopulation and racism. The charming, larger-than-life lawyer and his brilliant wife, Sheryl, a former homecoming queen, launched a radical experiment to raise their two biological sons alongside four children adopted from Korea, Vietnam, and the South Bronx—the so-called war zones of the American century. They moved to rural New Jersey with dreams of creating what Bob described as a new Noah’s ark, filled with “two of every race.”
While the venture made for a great photograph, with the proverbial “casseroles and potato chips out for everyone,” the Brady Brunch façade began to crack once reality seeped into the yard, adding undue complexity to the ordinary drama of a big family. Neighbors began to stare. Vacations went wrong. Joy and laughter commingled with discomfort and alienation. Familial bonds inevitably buckled. In the end, this picture-perfect family was no longer, and memories of the idyllic undertaking were marred by tragedy.
In lyrical yet wrenching prose, Matthew Pratt Guterl, one of the children, narrates a family saga of astonishing originality, in which even the best intentions would prove woefully inadequate. He takes us inside the clapboard house where Bob and Sheryl raised their makeshift brood in a nation riven then as now by virulent racism and xenophobia. Chronicling both the humor and pathos of this experiment, he “opens a door to our dreams of what the idea of family might make possible.”
In the tradition of James McBride’s The Color of Water, Skinfolk exposes the joys and constraints of love, blood, and belonging, and the persistent river of racial violence in America, past and present.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 2023
101 people are currently reading
2411 people want to read
About the author
Matthew Pratt Guterl
9 books20 followersI am a historian, so I write books. But I read them, too. If I really enjoy something, I'll review it here. And feel free to message me.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
October 27, 2025
I find the subject matter of this book extremely important and fascinating. Guterl's narrative style is very appealing to me. Some criticize him for not sharing more of his siblings' details and perspectives but I respect him even more for recognizing that the only story he's entitled to tell is his own.
March 14, 2023
Having lived through all the adoptions by my brother, Bob Guterl, I can genuinely say that the premise of this memoir is false. Bob adopted his children out of love. He lived his life trying to obey the commandment “love one another.” His family was not an “experiment.” He was not so foolish as to think he could solve the problems of racism in the world. Bug’s alienation had nothing to do with race or adoption, but with an internal struggle. It’s sad that Matthew missed the point of his father’s life.
April 13, 2023
The author's white liberal parents had two biological children and adopted four more (Asian, Black/Asian and Black) to create a "utopian family," which seemed like a noble idea in the 1970s. Sadly, their well-intentioned efforts to raise a race-blind family were damaging in many ways, given that the rest of the world certainly recognized the differences among the siblings.
The author acknowledges that this book offers his perspective only (it's like Diff'rent Strokes told from Kimberly's point of view), and that he can't speak for his siblings. Unfortunately, that commitment leaves the reader with the bare bones of an interesting and tragic story, with a lot of emotions and details that are only hinted at or poorly explained. If the experience of being a Black/Asian child adopted by White parents is not Matthew's tale to tell, does this book need to exist?
The author acknowledges that this book offers his perspective only (it's like Diff'rent Strokes told from Kimberly's point of view), and that he can't speak for his siblings. Unfortunately, that commitment leaves the reader with the bare bones of an interesting and tragic story, with a lot of emotions and details that are only hinted at or poorly explained. If the experience of being a Black/Asian child adopted by White parents is not Matthew's tale to tell, does this book need to exist?
August 17, 2023
Let’s all agree that this book is Matthew’s perception of life, regardless of how his aunt or any reader feels. He is allowed his view. Overall, just a sad book of how you f*ck up kids even when you’re loving and provide for them. There is a lot that Matthew leaves out to protect his siblings, so even as he mention’s an incident in the basement, he never expounds. It makes me sad not even knowing the situation. I hope that his siblings have all found peace, I hope that they take care of each other, and I hope Bear is safe.
February 7, 2024
تصویری گیرا از ذهنیتِ غرق در توهم و خودویرانگر لیبرالهای سفید
April 14, 2023
A devastating, heartbreaking story of a racial family experiment, where children's lives and well-being were put on the line for a social performance, and to "prove a point". Guterl is a wonderful storyteller and doesn't shy away from difficult topics or confessions. This memoir is an unflinching look at the realities of family, race, white privilege, systems of oppression, and the naiveté and harm of white liberalism. If you're interested in race in America, I think this book is now an essential read.
Thank you to Liveright for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to Liveright for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
October 9, 2023
Exceptional
March 17, 2023
Should be filed under “fiction.”
Read
January 27, 2025This book raises a ton of interesting questions about white saviorism and structural racism from a perspective that I have never heard before. However, it feels as though Guterl is missing a central theme and the narrative is sometimes all over the place
January 28, 2023
***Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review***
Despite Skinfolk being a memoir, Matthew Pratt Guterl takes a very distant, observer role in telling the story of his unique upbringing. Guterl is the white son of two white parents who, through both pregnancy and adoption, created a diverse family as a means of living their values. They displayed their ideals in an extremely visible way during a time when doing so was even less safe or popular than it is now. While this makes for a fascinating sociological read, it lacked emotion and self-reflection in the way I would have expected from a memoir. Guterl often comes across as if he is trying to be an objective observer of the goings on rather than someone who lived it. The few times where he does insert himself fully into the narrative, he seems detached from feeling. The clinical tone put me off a bit, and left me wondering what the author's true feelings are about the experiment in which he was unwittingly involved.
Despite Skinfolk being a memoir, Matthew Pratt Guterl takes a very distant, observer role in telling the story of his unique upbringing. Guterl is the white son of two white parents who, through both pregnancy and adoption, created a diverse family as a means of living their values. They displayed their ideals in an extremely visible way during a time when doing so was even less safe or popular than it is now. While this makes for a fascinating sociological read, it lacked emotion and self-reflection in the way I would have expected from a memoir. Guterl often comes across as if he is trying to be an objective observer of the goings on rather than someone who lived it. The few times where he does insert himself fully into the narrative, he seems detached from feeling. The clinical tone put me off a bit, and left me wondering what the author's true feelings are about the experiment in which he was unwittingly involved.
March 28, 2023
This is an interesting book about a family and the many different components of a specific family. Matthew writes about it with first hand knowledge, with pithy observations. The passage of time has allowed him to contemplate his family in a different way than while he was living it.
April 13, 2023
This is probably the most propulsive memoir I've ever read. It's right up there with The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir. The narrative voice is so mesmerizing. A week later, I'm still thinking about it and wishing I could just roll around in it a little longer!
July 2, 2023
This book left me with lots of questions and feelings. The easy part to discuss is the writing. At one point in the book, the author writes
The content is a little more difficult. Like many others, I question the lack of writing about any siblings except for Bear and, in the end, Eddie. The father comes across as a white saviour caricature, and the author seems to be struggling to not be the same. He appears to be genuinely close to Bear, while acknowledging he can never experience life the same way as his white skin protects him. Guterl raises some potent issues regarding race and prejudice in the current day and it would have been interesting to dive into those more. Maybe ditch the first 2/3 of the book and concentrate on the current day events and how they affect Bear and Eddie and the rest of the family.
A good director stretches out the suspense, leaving you wretched with emotional attenuation, and won't show you the thing until they absolutely must.He takes this to heart, using three paragraphs where three sentences would do, and three pages when three paragraphs would suffice. The writing improves toward the end of the book when he really has more to say about what is happening to his family. I think there is just not enough material for the beginning and he needed to pad it.
The content is a little more difficult. Like many others, I question the lack of writing about any siblings except for Bear and, in the end, Eddie. The father comes across as a white saviour caricature, and the author seems to be struggling to not be the same. He appears to be genuinely close to Bear, while acknowledging he can never experience life the same way as his white skin protects him. Guterl raises some potent issues regarding race and prejudice in the current day and it would have been interesting to dive into those more. Maybe ditch the first 2/3 of the book and concentrate on the current day events and how they affect Bear and Eddie and the rest of the family.
January 15, 2023
This memoir takes the reader to a small New Jersey town in the '70s and '80s. We meet an idealistic young couple who take on the bold experiment of creating a family with biological and adopted children from various racial/ethnic backgrounds. The memoir is written by one of the biological children. As he compassionately grapples with the complex racial and societal dynamics that the family encounters, he leaves the reader with a deep understanding of the historical moment and lessons about family, love, and race in America.
July 9, 2023
I couldn’t tell if the author hates his father or loves him.
Or his siblings.
It was tough to listen to without knowing if everything he said was out of censure or loving understanding.
Also interesting that he reflected so much on being on display as a child and then put his whole family on display as an adult.
Or his siblings.
It was tough to listen to without knowing if everything he said was out of censure or loving understanding.
Also interesting that he reflected so much on being on display as a child and then put his whole family on display as an adult.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 29, 2023
It feels surreal to read from a fellow Kept sibling, as I've never talked to one in my life. I knew I want to trust the narrative within the first pages, when the parents in the story are referred to by their first names - only us - only us who pondered what really makes parents parents, and reconciled that they have to be just other humans with names, not the labels that the non-adoptive world attributes so much of their meaning and connotation to, to understand our parents and our relationships with them.
Before that, though, I hesitated on my copy of the book for a while, wondering if it was ok for the author, a white person, and a Kept person, to speak on the circumstances of adoption? Or maybe really, I might have been wondering, what purpose would my narrative ever serve, as a Kept person and someone who immigrated by choice?
We are too adoptive to ever feel comfortable with the dominant narrative of adoption, not even the adoptive parents' ones, yet never will, and never should be the authoritative voices on the topic of adoption - that should always be adoptees. Just like what was covered in the book, there were things we saw differently as children, there were things we sought after fiercely as adults, yet there are parts we fail to see, that were the experiences of our adoptee counterparts. I have been silent for most of my life, because much of it wasn't mine to share, nor should my voice be out there to overpower those of the adoptees. (Yet adoptive parents and non adoptive people often feel so entitled to speak and comment on our issues.) But maybe we should say something, about ourselves, and with our limitations.
If you only take away one thing from this though: listen to adoptees, and listen to the children.
Before that, though, I hesitated on my copy of the book for a while, wondering if it was ok for the author, a white person, and a Kept person, to speak on the circumstances of adoption? Or maybe really, I might have been wondering, what purpose would my narrative ever serve, as a Kept person and someone who immigrated by choice?
We are too adoptive to ever feel comfortable with the dominant narrative of adoption, not even the adoptive parents' ones, yet never will, and never should be the authoritative voices on the topic of adoption - that should always be adoptees. Just like what was covered in the book, there were things we saw differently as children, there were things we sought after fiercely as adults, yet there are parts we fail to see, that were the experiences of our adoptee counterparts. I have been silent for most of my life, because much of it wasn't mine to share, nor should my voice be out there to overpower those of the adoptees. (Yet adoptive parents and non adoptive people often feel so entitled to speak and comment on our issues.) But maybe we should say something, about ourselves, and with our limitations.
If you only take away one thing from this though: listen to adoptees, and listen to the children.
October 24, 2025
The whole premise of Guterl's family, the "two of every race" bit sounds like it could end really well or really terribly and that's what drew me in as someone weary of interracial adoption. The answer though ends up being (predictably) more nuanced.
Though this this a memoir, it doesn't read like one all the way through. Instead of a chronologically ordered narrative, Guterl orders chapters centered around different aspects relating to the family such as going to church, dinnertime, the house itself, etc. This made Skinfolk a fairly easy read but truthfully I was more interested in the family members themselves than the chores they had to do. I wanted to know more about Guterl's siblings lives, both past and future but he only gave the slimmest of details. Sure, these are admittedly not his stories to tell, but in a memoir it's a bit frustrating to draw the reader in but not fully let them in. If he was not in a place to share intimate family details was he really in a place to write a memoir centered around his family?
The dialogue around race was definitely a strength to this book and one where you can clearly see Guterl's academic background. He's not afraid to make you uncomfortable, and just when you start to think that the Guterl family was a pipeline for white savior, “color blind” narratives, Guterl himself pulls back and acknowledges why the beliefs of him/his parents were wrong, that their ideals were inherently naive and simplistic. This is clearly a man who has deep love for his siblings but also acknowledges that in a country like the US, love is just not enough to overcome deep-seeded systems of oppressions. He's not ashamed to check his own privilege and compliance.
Overall, I thought this would have been better suited to be a discussion around race with anecdotes about his family peppered in instead of the other way around.
Though this this a memoir, it doesn't read like one all the way through. Instead of a chronologically ordered narrative, Guterl orders chapters centered around different aspects relating to the family such as going to church, dinnertime, the house itself, etc. This made Skinfolk a fairly easy read but truthfully I was more interested in the family members themselves than the chores they had to do. I wanted to know more about Guterl's siblings lives, both past and future but he only gave the slimmest of details. Sure, these are admittedly not his stories to tell, but in a memoir it's a bit frustrating to draw the reader in but not fully let them in. If he was not in a place to share intimate family details was he really in a place to write a memoir centered around his family?
The dialogue around race was definitely a strength to this book and one where you can clearly see Guterl's academic background. He's not afraid to make you uncomfortable, and just when you start to think that the Guterl family was a pipeline for white savior, “color blind” narratives, Guterl himself pulls back and acknowledges why the beliefs of him/his parents were wrong, that their ideals were inherently naive and simplistic. This is clearly a man who has deep love for his siblings but also acknowledges that in a country like the US, love is just not enough to overcome deep-seeded systems of oppressions. He's not ashamed to check his own privilege and compliance.
Overall, I thought this would have been better suited to be a discussion around race with anecdotes about his family peppered in instead of the other way around.
April 12, 2023
At times a bit detached, especially when discussing his life as a child. There have been rifts in the family over the years, and because of this, there are obvious holes in the family’s story and siblings that the author is clearly closer with than others. This is to be expected in real life, but for the purposes of this tale, there are obvious vacancies. At times it worked better than others. The book worked up to a strong closing. I felt the passion and love begin to bleed through a text that at times felt methodical and a bit academic.
October 10, 2023
It's rare to read a transracial adoption story from the perspective of the sibling of the adopted child/children. Mr. Guterl is straightforward about being aware at all times of his family's open status as The Multiracial Blended Family of the Future (something his father promoted, thankfully not as vehemently as others), and of his awareness that his being his white parents' biological child still grants him privilege.
March 3, 2024
Great read. Excellent choice of words and vivid details invite you in and keep you engaged.
Interesting memoir of a family, where the author carefully, critically, and thoughtfully breaks down choices made and their effects. How life outside the white house and picket fence is systematically unchanged from a daring and well-intentioned 'experiment'. I appreciate the author's honesty.
Interesting memoir of a family, where the author carefully, critically, and thoughtfully breaks down choices made and their effects. How life outside the white house and picket fence is systematically unchanged from a daring and well-intentioned 'experiment'. I appreciate the author's honesty.
Read
October 26, 2023Compelling. Haunting. Unsettling. Fascinating.
March 1, 2024
Wow - impactful and unflinching. As an adoptee I understood many of the themes, but the layers of race and saviourism were illuminating. Good intentions often work out in unexpected ways.
August 17, 2023
A really important story with a lot of real life lessons.
I was not fond of the author's writing style. I found it grating at times. Hence the 3 stars. Still, I do not regret reading it.
I was not fond of the author's writing style. I found it grating at times. Hence the 3 stars. Still, I do not regret reading it.
November 16, 2023
A fascinating and deeply moving story, masterful storytelling, an extraordinary memoir. A must-read.
February 27, 2024
Thought provoking - enjoyed
February 10, 2023
So, a white guy had an idea to artificially create a family that is multi-racial. And how'd that go for him? If you're interested in ways to screw up your kids, this may be your book. The idea is at best naive and wishful and at worst, manipulative. Reading this book was like watching a car crash in slow motion.
If you're interested in family dynamics, though, you may find this to be an enlightening read and it does read smoothly.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Not my cup of tea, but I think it will find its readership.
If you're interested in family dynamics, though, you may find this to be an enlightening read and it does read smoothly.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Not my cup of tea, but I think it will find its readership.
April 14, 2023
When your parents make you part of their social experiment things do not always go as planned.
Matthew Guterl's parents Bob and Sheryl were good hearted forward thinking people that wanted to make the world a better place by creating their own Noah's ark of sorts with different races of children versus animals. A prescient idea but, as life happens there were good and bad parts to their plan.
I found the book remarkable because the children now adults are good people even if not as close as they once were as children. Most continue to care for each other, although I suspect all still care, even if they don't show it.
The book is about hope for a better world and a family that were unusual at the time but, now it is far more common to see mixed race families and think nothing of it.
Matthew Guterl's parents Bob and Sheryl were good hearted forward thinking people that wanted to make the world a better place by creating their own Noah's ark of sorts with different races of children versus animals. A prescient idea but, as life happens there were good and bad parts to their plan.
I found the book remarkable because the children now adults are good people even if not as close as they once were as children. Most continue to care for each other, although I suspect all still care, even if they don't show it.
The book is about hope for a better world and a family that were unusual at the time but, now it is far more common to see mixed race families and think nothing of it.
November 26, 2023
I must admit, the title "Skinfolk" caught my attention for different reasons. Initially, I thought it might be written by an African American. I was pleasantly mistaken! It turned out to be a heartwarming and insightful memoir, exploring the unique dynamics of growing up in a large transracial family. Despite the well-meaning intentions of the white parents, the narrative doesn't shy away from addressing the profound impact of adoption-related trauma, heightened by the intricate interplay of race in America.
Overall, I found this memoir very enjoyable, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!
Overall, I found this memoir very enjoyable, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!
Read
August 1, 2023I honestly don’t know how to rate this book. Can I rate chapters individually? Some chapters could be a 4 but others a 1. I feel like some chapters could really have just been a paragraph.
April 28, 2023
Bob and Sheryl meet and get married in the late 1960s in New Jersey. They're white and look a bit like young Republicans, at least compared to my parents and aunts & uncles. But they've decided to design a family with two white kids, two Black kids, and two Asian kids (Bob describes this as two of every race, obviously forgetting a few). Progressive, especially in 1969. Also problematic, even though Bob and Sheryl are financially and emotionally stable, for all the reasons that we in 2023 can guess before reading the book.
This is mostly a story of Bob, a lawyer, then a judge, and Exhibit A of mid-century white suburban American man. Fatherhood is about assigning the kids chores (largely to keep them out of trouble), haranguing them about the electric bill, and delivering quasi-cult-ey lectures over dinner every night at 6:00. He spends more time with his family than pretty much every father I knew growing up. To use vocabulary I don't remember once hearing at the time, Bob is present, Bob is emotionally available. He tries hard, he provides well.
And yet Bob makes a few critical missteps. The impact is hardest on two of the kids--Bug and Eddie--who are way underdeveloped as characters. The most developed character of the kids is Bear. Every scene that hit me in the gut involved Bear.
Right from the start, Bear's story made me want to cry, about how he was whisked out of Vietnam in the chaos of the fall of Saigon, about how his older half-brother gave him the only photo of their Vietnamese mother with the three kids she was so desperate to save, about how Bear and what sounds like dozens of other refugee children were hastily handed over to American families as if they were rescued beagle puppies.
And I cheered so hard for Bear as he grew up. Every Friday night watching movies with the family, he was rooting for the Black characters in the movies, and every time he was disappointed b/c those Black characters were killed. "Didn't make it." And yet Bear became the star athlete, he "won" the speechgiving at weddings and funerals, he survived a recent attack that terrifyingly resembles what happened to Ahmaud Arbery.
Bob and Bear will stay with me. And Sheryl's bucket of silverware on the dining room table. I liked the details of growing up in the 1970s and 1980s (the author is exactly my age). I was intrigued by how the author, who is white, felt more comfortable studying at community college, because its diversity resembled his family, than at a university in Morgantown, West Virginia, which was (and maybe still is) far more white than I realized (my only experience of Morgantown is driving there from DC for great Mexican food).
When I'm reading, I'm often wondering if the story could work on the screen. This one would work pretty well, in a very loose "based upon the true story of X" sense. Fiction writers need to tweak it, adjust the focus, help the audience see if it's a story of Bob and white liberal ideals, or a story about Bear and the two families of his childhood, or a story about Eddie (and to some extent Bug) and how the world was never going to let him win. Where Bob and Sheryl failed to protect one of their kids, they were up against anti-Black structures that they couldn't even see much less change.
Can two well-meaning white parents "be the change" in this way? Will they inevitably fail b/c of their whiteness, or in Bob and Sheryl's case, their limited awareness of the bubble of whiteness they live in? Looking at their grown kids and the next generation, did Bob and Sheryl succeed in their anti-racist goals? (though they probably wouldn't have used a term like anti-racist). How do you measure success at anti-racism within one family? Obviously it's about more than the skin tones in the family photos. Is it about how the kids and grandkids talk with each other about race? Is it about how the white kids at least know enough to feel uncomfortable in all-white settings? What was the goal of designing a family this way: was it about about "saving" the Black and brown kids, or about using Black and brown kids to make sure the white kids see the world in a more enlightened way? Super uncomfortable questions.
The author frequently touches back on the metaphor of the white picket fence around their house. White picket fences are powerful symbols of a specific American myth/ideal/goal. But the author reminds us that historically pickets demarcated violent separation of insiders & outsiders. And the pickets around his family's property perfectly represent the tension in this story. In the front yard, the picket fence defines a stage where the kids could play together, always watched by others, "See, everyone? Racism solved!" In the back yard, they got to be themselves, got to relax, and it seems that for Bob and Sheryl, the picket fence represented all their efforts to protect their family.
This is mostly a story of Bob, a lawyer, then a judge, and Exhibit A of mid-century white suburban American man. Fatherhood is about assigning the kids chores (largely to keep them out of trouble), haranguing them about the electric bill, and delivering quasi-cult-ey lectures over dinner every night at 6:00. He spends more time with his family than pretty much every father I knew growing up. To use vocabulary I don't remember once hearing at the time, Bob is present, Bob is emotionally available. He tries hard, he provides well.
And yet Bob makes a few critical missteps. The impact is hardest on two of the kids--Bug and Eddie--who are way underdeveloped as characters. The most developed character of the kids is Bear. Every scene that hit me in the gut involved Bear.
Right from the start, Bear's story made me want to cry, about how he was whisked out of Vietnam in the chaos of the fall of Saigon, about how his older half-brother gave him the only photo of their Vietnamese mother with the three kids she was so desperate to save, about how Bear and what sounds like dozens of other refugee children were hastily handed over to American families as if they were rescued beagle puppies.
And I cheered so hard for Bear as he grew up. Every Friday night watching movies with the family, he was rooting for the Black characters in the movies, and every time he was disappointed b/c those Black characters were killed. "Didn't make it." And yet Bear became the star athlete, he "won" the speechgiving at weddings and funerals, he survived a recent attack that terrifyingly resembles what happened to Ahmaud Arbery.
Bob and Bear will stay with me. And Sheryl's bucket of silverware on the dining room table. I liked the details of growing up in the 1970s and 1980s (the author is exactly my age). I was intrigued by how the author, who is white, felt more comfortable studying at community college, because its diversity resembled his family, than at a university in Morgantown, West Virginia, which was (and maybe still is) far more white than I realized (my only experience of Morgantown is driving there from DC for great Mexican food).
When I'm reading, I'm often wondering if the story could work on the screen. This one would work pretty well, in a very loose "based upon the true story of X" sense. Fiction writers need to tweak it, adjust the focus, help the audience see if it's a story of Bob and white liberal ideals, or a story about Bear and the two families of his childhood, or a story about Eddie (and to some extent Bug) and how the world was never going to let him win. Where Bob and Sheryl failed to protect one of their kids, they were up against anti-Black structures that they couldn't even see much less change.
Can two well-meaning white parents "be the change" in this way? Will they inevitably fail b/c of their whiteness, or in Bob and Sheryl's case, their limited awareness of the bubble of whiteness they live in? Looking at their grown kids and the next generation, did Bob and Sheryl succeed in their anti-racist goals? (though they probably wouldn't have used a term like anti-racist). How do you measure success at anti-racism within one family? Obviously it's about more than the skin tones in the family photos. Is it about how the kids and grandkids talk with each other about race? Is it about how the white kids at least know enough to feel uncomfortable in all-white settings? What was the goal of designing a family this way: was it about about "saving" the Black and brown kids, or about using Black and brown kids to make sure the white kids see the world in a more enlightened way? Super uncomfortable questions.
The author frequently touches back on the metaphor of the white picket fence around their house. White picket fences are powerful symbols of a specific American myth/ideal/goal. But the author reminds us that historically pickets demarcated violent separation of insiders & outsiders. And the pickets around his family's property perfectly represent the tension in this story. In the front yard, the picket fence defines a stage where the kids could play together, always watched by others, "See, everyone? Racism solved!" In the back yard, they got to be themselves, got to relax, and it seems that for Bob and Sheryl, the picket fence represented all their efforts to protect their family.
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