The In-Betweens
A Lyrical Memoir
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
“Utterly captivating and resonant.” —Chicago Review of Books
“Gorgeously told.” —Philadelphia Inquirer
“Resonant. . . . Engagingly delivered, candid reflections on heritage and identity.” —Kirkus Reviews
The In-Betweens tells the story of a biracial boy becoming a man, all the while trying to find himself, trying to come to terms with his white family, and trying to find his place in American society. A rich narrative in the tradition of Justin Torres’s We the Animals and Bryan Washington’s Memorial, Davon Loeb’s memoir is relevant to the country’s current climate and is part of the necessary rewrite of the nation’s narrative and identity.
The son of a Black mother with deep family roots in Alabama and a white Jewish man from Long Island, Loeb grows up in a Black family in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey as one of the few nonwhite children in their suburban neighborhood. Despite his many and ongoing efforts to fit in, Loeb acutely feels his difference—he is singled out in class during Black History Month; his hair doesn’t conform to the latest fad; coaches and peers assume he is a talented athlete and dancer; and on the field trip to the Holocaust Museum, he is the Black Jew. But all is not struggle. In lyrical vignettes, Loeb vibrantly depicts the freedom, joys, and wonder of childhood; the awkwardness of teen years, first jobs, first passions. Loeb tells an individual story universally, and readers, regardless of subjectivity and relation, will see themselves throughout The In-Betweens.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Loeb debuts with a shallow depiction of growing up biracial in New Jersey. Portraying his coming-of-age moments in symphonic fragments ("There is always a winner and a loser, an account of the victory, and the untold story of the loss") he recounts being bullied in his nearly all-white community and struggling to fit into his own Black family. Raised by his Black mother from the mid-1980s to 2000s, with a mostly absent white Jewish father, Loeb recalls wanting desperately to "grab and hold on to something to call my own" as he shares the youthful adventures he longed for but never had with his missing father, summers spent at his Nana's house in the segregated Deep South, and a disturbing scene in which Loeb hints at his adolescent male friend taking advantage of an unconscious female classmate during a house party. The latter incident is brushed off, as are Loeb's decision to take part in hurtful pranks to avoid being singled out ("I could say that I am sorry now, but I'm not," he reflects.) There's rich material here, but the shallow treatment of masculinity blunts the work's impact. On the very crowded shelf of coming of age memoirs, this one doesn't stand out.
