"Everything & Nothing"

Caucasia
by Danzy Senna
as reviewed by Nicole Carter

The thing that always bothers me about novels glorified on the proverbial pedestal of academia is the emphasis on profound thematic issues over the actual story.  The purpose of reading these novels becomes extracting symbolism, rather than engaging in or relating to the story - it's more about "getting it." This is especially true in novels about political races. The characters are so symbolically saturated the reader is inclined to interpret rather than empathize. It's just exhausting.  But then there are novels like Danzy Senna's Caucasia that provide a completely captivating story with such invasive and haunting characters that there is no need to extract anything. It is a book for readers who like genuine substance without the pretentious and ambiguous. 

The book shadows the life of the young, biracial Birdie Lee.  She and her older sister, Cole, are the products of their black father, Deck, and white mother, Sandy in the volatile setting of a racially tense 1970’s Boston.  This mixture leads to the visual politics that confront the family - Birdie looks whiter and Cole looks blacker.  Both parents are active in the black power movement, but, when their ideologies split, so do they, each taking the most racially similar child: Deck takes Cole and Sandy takes Birdie.  Separated from her "black" half, Birdie begins a new life with her mother, passing as Jewish.
 
  This provides the premise for a story that poignantly describes the confusion and heartbreak of adolescence, compounded by a quest to find personal identity within and beyond the social constrictions of race.  Birdie tells her story with effortless honesty and, from the beginning, a total awareness of the politics of who she is.  This is comparable to the female biracial protagonist, Janie, in the classic Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston). 

Janie also initially has no way of identifying herself as black or white, girl or woman, and subsequently begins "testing" different identities to see which would fit.  But the difference is Janie is not aware that she is testing, while Birdie’s testing is deliberate.  Because of this hyper-awareness, the reader can easily relate to a character like Birdie, and all the higher-thinking that accompanies great novels becomes intrinsic in the reading. 
 
Not to mention that, at this point, you can line up most of these novels about race and play thematic connect the dots. It's rare to read something that directly confronts the less explored themes.  This is what’s so refreshing about Caucasia - Senna addresses the duality that race is everything and nothing at the same time.  It's everything because it defines Birdie socially, but it's nothing because it is socially defined.  This is confronted in dialogue between characters and expressed in Birdie's thoughts, not hidden behind symbolic events. 
 
Basically, if you want to read a book that leaves you with intellectual and philosophical thoughts about life, as well as a sense of connection with the story, this is it.  It's one of those books that can be read at leisure, or in a classroom- a truly versatile masterpiece.  Senna exposes all those things natural and particular to the human experience through a simple vehicle: good storytelling.