Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience

I'm still reading and enjoying the short, non-fiction accounts of the people in this book. I suggest you buy it.

MIXED explores the mixed-race experience and successfully dismantles so many common misconceptions about people of mixed-race or cross-cultural heritage. It's a gem that ought to be featured in high school literature courses not only for its collection of outstanding stories, but for the insights its contributors shed on the realities and paradoxes of the contemporary multiracial experience.

many generations ago, someone of my racial background-- english protestant, irish catholic, scottish, and german-- might have been considered to be "mixed." today i am just considered "white." but there are a growing number of americans whose racial backgrounds defy easy categorization in the modern terminology of race. someday, they too may find themselves with a single moniker. for now, though, they struggle with multiple identities in a society that doesn't quite know where to place them. "mixed" explores the many facets of such an existence, in a diverse collection of stories that have been expertly chosen and arranged into a cohesive whole. for me, some of the standouts were the sly humor of emily raboteau's "mrs. turner's lawn jockeys," the awkward adolescence of mamle kabu's "human mathematics," the brutal reality of kien nguyen's "the lost sparrow," and editor chandra prasad's own haunting contribution, "wayward." and danzy senna's "triad"-- the same story told three times, with the protagonist's race changed for each telling-- is a brilliant conclusion to the collection. on the whole, these short stories should find an audience not only among mixed-race readers, but even among those who never have to check "other" under "ethnicity" when filling out forms.

All interesting tales, however, the jewel of the collection has to be Mat Johnson's GIFT GIVING. Brutal, deliciously self-deprecating, and at times laugh out loud funny. Johnson's star just keeps on rising-Pity it's only a short.

I read a couple of positive reviews for this book and decided to buy it. Previously, the only similar book I'd read was Half and Half: Writers on Growing up Biracial and Bicultural. That book was nonfiction. What I liked about Mixed is that it is comprised of only fiction, which I've always preferred to memoirs, essays, etc. Short stories are easier for me to relate to, analyze, and explore on a more personal level. I found the stories of very high literary quality (expect nothing less from W.W. Norton). One standout is Ruth Ozeki's "The Anthropologists' Kids," which addresses the theme of mixed race and culture with such acuity and nuance that the story transcends its context and becomes a universally sympathetic tale of adolescent discontent and unrequited love. Mat Johnson's "Gift Gifting" is so brazen and gritty compared to some of the other pieces that its impact is jarringly good. I also enjoyed the elegant simplicity of the pieces by Emily Raboteau and Neela Vaswani. The author's comments on their own stories are sometimes as fascinating as--or even more fascinating than--the stories themselves, as is the case with Kien Nguyen's "The Lost Sparrow." Overall, I came away from this anthology with a better sense of what the term multiracial (or "mixed") means, and how complicated, strange, and powerful a factor race continues to be in many people's lives. This is a unique book, and well worth checking out.