The Girl in the Yellow Poncho
A Memoir
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
At five years old, Kristal Brent Zook sat on the steps of a Venice Beach, California, motel trying to make sense of her white father’s abandonment, which left her feeling unworthy of a man’s love and of white protection. Raised by her working-class African American mother and grandmother, Zook was taught not to count on anyone, especially men. Men leave. Men disappoint. In adulthood she became a feminist, activist, and “race woman” journalist in New York City. Despite her professional success, something was missing. Coming to terms with her identity was a constant challenge.
The Girl in the Yellow Poncho is Zook’s coming-of-age tale about what it means to be biracial in America. Throughout, she grapples with in-betweenness while also facing childhood sexual assault, economic insecurity, and multigenerational alcoholism and substance abuse on both the Black and white sides of her family. Her story is one of strong Black women—herself, her cousin, her mother, and her grandmother—and the generational cycles of oppression and survival that seemingly defined their lives.
Setting out on an inner journey that takes her across oceans and continents, Zook tells the story of a little girl who never gives up on love, even long after it seems to have been destroyed. In the end she triumphs, reconciling with her father and mother to create the family of her dreams through forgiveness and sheer force of will. A testament to the power of settling into one’s authentic identity, this book tells a story of a daughter’s lifelong yearning, a mother’s rediscovery of lost love, and the profound power of atonement and faith to heal a broken family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Zook (I See Black People) explores abandonment issues, intergenerational trauma, racial discrimination, and addiction in this promising but overstuffed memoir. At the center of the narrative are Zook's emotionally distant mother and grandmother, who raised her, and her drug- and alcohol-addicted father, who was absent for much of her childhood. From her mother and grandmother, Zook learned "one all-encompassing lesson: Black women survive. Push past the fear, the sadness... don't count on anyone but yourself." That lesson proved especially true as Zook discovered that the light skin and green eyes she inherited from her white father meant, in certain cirlces, that she wasn't "Black enough." Throughout college, graduate school, and a journalism career with outlets including Essence and the Washington Post, Zook reconnected with and again disengaged from her father, who failed to take responsibility for the wounds he'd inflicted: "The child in me longed to embrace her long-lost father, but the grown-up woman just couldn't allow it." With the help of therapy and lessons learned from her own marriage and experiences as a mother, Zook eventually began to move toward reconciling with both of her parents. The author's cultural analysis, particularly with regards to race, is incisive, but the book's disjointed timeline and tendency to rush through major events blunt its impact. Zook is capable of more than she delivers here.
