Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

• Genre: Nonfiction; graphic memoir
• Originally Published: 2019
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: Approx. 368 pages; approx. 2 hours, 46 minutes on audio
• Central Concern: Jacob illuminates complicated questions about race, family, identity, love, and sexuality based on conversations with her son, family members, and others.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Racism and racial conflict; identity

Mira Jacob, Author

• Bio: Novelist and illustrator with writing and drawings in The New York Times Book Review, Tin House, Vogue, and other publications; visiting professor at The New School; founding faculty member of MFA Program at Randolph College
• Other Works: The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing (2014)
• Awards: National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee, Autobiography (2019); Reading Women Award Nominee, Nonfiction (2019); PEN Open Book Award Nominee (2020)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Racism in America and Its Effects on People of Color
• Hope for the Future of America
• The Effects of the Past on the Present

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Reflect on and discuss their views of racism in America, political events related to racism, and solutions to the issue of racism in America
• Utilize their creativity to create a responsive poem or painting representing their source of hope for the future
• Read and analyze paired texts that connect to Good Talk’s themes of Racism in America and Its Effects on People of Color and The Effects of the Past on the Present
• Examine in structured essay responses the author’s techniques, artistic style, and views on the topics discussed within the memoir