Painfully honest and quietly brutal memoir of a black woman who can "pass" as white, and the compromises she has to choose to make (or not make) pretty much every second of the day. It's exhausting to read, I can't fathom having to live it. The quiet, permeating horror of life in the suburbs, the only black family and always different, as the neighbours are friendly to Derricotte on the one hand and on the other trot off to the club that excludes her because of her race... it's excruciating. That's the two main impressions I get from this book, really. Permeation and exhaustion - or more accurately the realisation of both, because these are compromises and excruciations that I myself will never have to face, and because of that never fully recognised in others.

I'm not even sure that I still do recognise it, at least not fully but this book brought me closer to adequate realisation. It's really powerful stuff - a hard read, sometimes, but a necessary one I think.