An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge
Hope Was Here
A voice-y coming-of-age novel full of similes/metaphors/adages, food and politics. Strangely wonderful.
There are several weird racial/ethnic bits in this book that I didn't remember (sushi to determine food sophistication*, attributing a saying to a "Chinese philosopher," "the most beautiful African-American woman,"** "Mexican eggs," "dressed like Eskimos") but nothing egregious.
*Hope doesn't seem to anticipate meeting any Japanese people (or maybe if she met a Japanese person they would automatically be seen as a food sophisticate?). There are no Asian characters in the novel so we'll never know.
**This feels very close to "pretty for a black woman" but doesn't quite get there. It would have been just as easy to write that Brenda Babcock is beautiful and then describe her as a black woman.
1
