The Girl in the Yellow Poncho

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. Agent: Laura Nolan, Aevitas Creative Management. (July)