Rebecca, Not Becky
A Novel
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
In the vein of Such a Fun Age, a whip-smart, compulsively readable novel about two upper-class stay-at-home mothers—one white, one Black—living in a "perfect" suburb that explores motherhood, friendship, and the true meaning of sisterhood amidst the backdrop of America’s all-too-familiar racial reckoning.
De’Andrea Whitman, her husband Malik, and their five-year-old daughter, Nina, are new to the upper-crust white suburb of Rolling Hills, Virginia—a move motivated by circumstance rather than choice. De’Andrea is heartbroken to leave her comfortable life in the Black oasis of Atlanta, and between her mother-in-law’s Alzheimer's diagnosis, her daughter starting kindergarten, and the overwhelming whiteness of Rolling Hills, she finds herself struggling to adjust to her new community. To ease the transition, her therapist proposes a challenge: make a white girlfriend.
When Rebecca Myland learns about her new neighbors, the Whitmans, she's thrilled. As chair of the Parent Diversity Committee at her daughters’ school, she’s championed racial diversity in the community—and what could be better than a brand-new Black family? It’s serendipitous when her daughter, Isabella, and Nina become best friends on the first day of kindergarten. Now, Rebecca can put everything she’s learned about antiracism into practice—especially those oh-so-informative social media posts. And finally, the Parent Diversity Committee will have some… well, diversity.
Following her therapist’s suggestion, De’Andrea reluctantly joins Rebecca’s committee. The painfully earnest white woman is so overly eager it makes De’Andrea wonder if Rebecca’s therapist told her to make a Black friend! But when Rolling Hill’s rising racial sentiments bring the two women together in common cause, they find it isn’t the only thing they have in common. . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Children's author Platt (the Frankie & Friends series) teams up with filmmaker Greene for an incisive story of two stay-at-home moms, one Black, one white, whose complex friendship roils their northern Virginia suburb. De'Andrea Whitman, a former lawyer, misses her old friends in Atlanta after moving to Rolling Hills, and has little interest in befriending the white mothers at her daughter's school. One of them, Rebecca Myland, means well ("Rebecca was NOT a Becky," the authors write with a mix of irony and sympathy, referencing the meme about angry racist white women), but she routinely and obliviously offends the few parents of color. De'Andrea's therapist picks up on De'Andrea's hostility toward white women and encourages her to befriend one. She begrudgingly agrees and accepts a Diversity Book Club invitation from Rebecca, though she ends up bonding instead with two Asian American women. Eventually, De'Andrea and Rebecca find common cause in an effort to remove a Confederate monument from a local park, and as their crusade reaches a boiling point, members of each of their families are affected in surprising ways. The authors carefully demonstrate how each of the protagonists is hampered by preconceived notions of the other, and the social satire smoothly evolves into a propulsive page-turner. Fans of Such a Fun Age ought to check this out. This review has been updated with further information.
