Mat Johnson is a writer I know of because of Twitter. I've followed him there for years, though I can't remember how I initially found my way to him. Several years ago, I found a copy of his book
Pym at the thrift shop I used to frequent on my lunch break back when I worked in Murray Hill. I didn't buy it, a decision I found myself soon after when I read (again, I have no idea where, though likely also on Twitter) something that made me curious to read it. It has stayed in the back of my mind. Last year, when I was visiting the Bay Area over Thanksgiving, I found
Loving Day at a San Francisco thrift shop and I saw it as an opportunity to correct my mistake. I came very close to starting it that week. I think I had in mind that if I finished it while I was there, I could leave it behind with the friend I was visiting, who is biracial. Knowing nothing about it besides the title, I thought it might be of particular interest to her (and indeed, while I was reading it, I thought that several times again). I'm having a hard time remembering any off the top of my head, though I'm sure I've read other books that center mixed race characters. But
Loving Day is surely the only book I've read that is specifically about being mixed race. What's odd is that this is so remarkable.
Loving Day is about a biracial man, recently divorced, who moves back home to Philadelphia where he discovers he has a teenaged daughter, whom he was previously unaware of. His daughter, the product of a relationship he had as a teenager with a Jewish girl, has been raised as a white Jew, though we eventually learn she had suspicions that she was part Black. This was a funny and sweet book.
