A review by savaging
Blacker the Berry... by Wallace Thurman

3.0

A disorienting book. I don't know how to write about it. Maybe it's because the mind of the main character, Emma Lou, is always inscrutable to me, at one moment with an clear analysis of racism, misogyny, and colorism; at the next with the shallowest kind of disgust toward other black people because of their blackness; at one moment brave and secular; at the next with a kind of pearl-clutching why-I-never indignation over any fiddling with conservative social mores. This is either not a realistic character, or else it's far too realistic for me to follow.

Emma Lou isn't only marginalized all of her life because of her color, she's also consistently gaslit, everyone telling her she made up the problem in her head, or that her begrudging attitude made others treat her this way. I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of her final 'victory.'