Comments on: 7.15.07 Ace of Spades

By: Jenna Hatfield

Jenna Hatfield — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:30:20 +0000

Question from Me:

1) What box is checked now that there are options.

2) What advice, specific or general, would you have to offer parents raising children of different nationalities or ethnicities, taking into account the (minor and major) differences in the past twenty years? Are those differences, themselves, big enough that parents should expect an easy road for their children or should they be concentrating on specific areas to help their children through the racism and hatred that still exists?

That said, this book has me intrigued!

By: Lisa Kenney

Lisa Kenney — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:20:38 +0000

It’s doubtful there are two ethnicities who’ve historically experienced more oppression and yet, without being able to fully identify or find acceptance within either, it had to have been the worst of all possible worlds. Living in a black community, you had plenty of exposure to what you were being excluded from. Did you ever have a desire to explore your Jewish heritage, or was the rejection from your mother’s family too complete to pique much curiosity? Do you relate to that part of your DNA enough to feel anti-Semitism on any kind of personal level? Clearly in the 60s and 70s things were quite different for you than they are today. Do you identify yourself as simply American now, or as something more specific?

By: Alison

Alison — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:18:35 +0000

Hi Felicia!

Here are my questions for David Matthews:

1) In writing this novel, were you influenced by any other novels of “passing,” specifically works such as Black Like Me?

2) Have you noticed a distinction in the way that the topic of “passing” is treated in New York as opposed to Baltimore?

3) Which cutlure do you feel that you more strongly identify with now? Did writing this book lead to any particular realization?

Alison