The In-Betweens: A Lyrical Memoir

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. (Feb.)