"Jerome sat in the front seat next to the taxi-driver because the trip was Jerome's treat and Jerome's idea; Levi, Zora and Kiki were in the second row of this people-carrier, and Howard lay flat on his back with a row to himself... It was a classic family outing, proposed at the moment when all the members of the family had never felt less familial." (pg.60) "Kiki held her temper, waiting for the two to think of someone other than themselves. When this didn't happen, she exploded. They were only just recovering from the family row that ensue. The sulking and door slamming would have continued indefinitely had not Jerome - ever the peacemaker - thought up this trip as an opportunity for everybody to be nice to each other." (pg.61) Because the story is about family relations, I thought it was appropriate to have good detailing when describing the family events.
The book is about an interracial family with a black mother and white father and their children. With relevance to Black History month, it describes the different lifestyle that arises in an interracial marriage. The following passage is a conversation between the father (Howard) and his youngest son (Levi) who is in his teens.
"Are you going to work today? They let you wear it at the wotsit, the record shop? Sure, sure... Its not a record shop - I keep telling you - it's a mega-store. There's like seven floors. You make me laugh, man, said Levi quietly, his lips buzzing Howard's skin through his shirt. Levi pulled back now from his father, patting him down like a bouncer. So you going now or what? What you gonna say to J? Who you flyin' wid?" (pg.22)
"Here they all were, Howard's imaginary class. Howard indulged in a quick visual catalogue of their interesting bits, knowing that this would very likely be the lat time he saw them. The punk boy with black-painted fingernails, the Indian girl with the disproportionate eyes of a Disney character, another girl who looked no older than fourteen with a railroad on her teeth." (pg.154) I liked the detail in this passage because one can imagine exactly what Howard must be seeing in his imaginary class.
Another passage that I liked describes those Kodak moment baby pictures because it describes it exactly.
"The children come first in black and white: podgy and dimpled, haloed with curls. They seem always to be tumbling towards the view and over each other, folding on their sausage legs." (pg.17)
