Book Review: ‘Thicker than Water’ by Kerry Washington
Thicker than Water by Kerry Washington reflects on the award-winning actress’ life from her humble beginnings in the Bronx to her stardom in Hollywood as she begins to seek the truth in a long-held family secret.
Even as a young child, I felt that I was never who my dad needed me to be. I knew he really wanted a son and that they weren’t having any more children. I wondered if I could soften the blow somehow by being a daughter who was prettier, or smarter, or braver, or more successful, but even that didn’t work.
Kerry Marisa Washington was born in New York City, and her story focuses on the meaning of her middle name. Marisa translates to “girl of the sea” in Latin. She embodies her mermaid nature by swimming as a child with her cousins and neighbors at a government-subsidized cooperative housing building for middle-income families. When she swims, that is the time she feels the most free. She tries to hold onto that childhood freedom when she overhears her parents fighting at night. The tension between her parents over legal turmoil circulating her father’s real estate dealings makes her anxious. As she evolves from child to teenager, she absorbs her family’s troubles as the only child. The child her parents desired for so long after years of infertility. The child who lives in the shadow of a stillborn sibling who came years before her when her mother was married to another man. The child who is slowly growing older and finding her purpose.
What soothes the blossoming anxiety is acting. Kerry becomes a standout in middle and high school performances. Her mother worries about the lack of stability in a potential acting career. The only famous person they know is Jennifer Lopez, who taught Kerry dance at their local Boys & Girls Club, but according to Kerry, everyone noticed J.Lo’s charisma. To Kerry, she may not be cut from the same cloth. As a teen accumulating roles in school performances, she joins Mount Sinai Hospital’s Adolescent Health Center’s S.T.A.R. program, which educates and entertains children about the dangers of risky sexual behavior. She gets recognition when she plays the role of a girl who discovered she had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS during a televised ABC town hall. She also nabs her Screen Actors Guild membership off a speaking role in an ABC after-school special. These could be viewed as moments of unintentional manifestation when she later becomes the first Black actress to lead a primetime TV drama in nearly 40 years on the same network in her role as Olivia Pope on Scandal.
Her love for acting is noticed by a mentor, who refers her to an agent for an audition for Interview with the Vampire. She loses the role to Thandiwe Newton. As a Black teen girl in high school, Kerry isn’t winning roles, but when Thandiwe Newton also nabs the role of Sally Hemings in another audition, Kerry heads to George Washington University in D.C. The university is not too far away from New York City, but Kerry’s growing anxiety evolves into an eating disorder.
She struggles with her binge eating for years, but upon graduation, she heads back home in hopes of nabbing roles with her college training. She gets her first big role in an independent film called Our Song about three Black young women in a marching band. She soon gets the pivotal role as Chenille, a teen mother balancing school in inner-city Chicago, in Save the Last Dance.
My biology had been their enemy. Consequently, I had learned to survive without a true relationship to it. I didn’t know my body; I couldn’t read its signs. I didn’t rest when I was tired, didn’t register when I was hungry, couldn’t decipher when I was full. Over time, my body became my enemy, and I couldn’t bear the discomfort of being fully present in my skin. I sensed that my embodiment scared my mother and threatened my dad. Presence itself—being fully alive and aware—became something to avoid. The fuel that had powered our family was pretending.
Over the last several years solidifying her TV and film success, the private star marries her husband Nnamdi Asomugha and raises two children while being a bonus mother to a stepdaughter. Scandal is coming to an end, and Kerry is exploring options with her production company, Simpson Street. Upon meeting Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. at an event, the renowned historian invites Kerry to be featured on his show, Finding Your Roots on PBS. But then her parents give her devastating news about her lineage, which forces her to question her identity and her past.
On the heels of Americans seeking discoveries within their DNA, the actress learns that her willingness to please her parents and feeling down when she thought she wasn’t the perfect child fueled so much of her anxiety. While handling these emotional fluctuations, she also chose a career filled with rejections that kept watering the seed in her mind that she wasn’t good enough. In her role as Olivia Pope, we see Kerry Washington portray this complicated woman with such poise that we may not realize how much energy goes into showing that poise to an audience. By telling her story, she seems more down-to-earth, despite her opportunities of acting arising so early in her life.
The memoir follows Kerry as she goes through the ups and downs of acting, a career she felt connected to as a preteen. Witnessing her work ethic while witnessing the countless rejections can be seen as inspirational for readers who are also in ambitious careers. Her first film did turn out to be an indie film darling and opened the door to her role in Save the Last Dance, but she had already been acting for more than a decade.
Overall, the memoirist does a wonderful job of connecting the trials and tribulations to finding solace in memories tied to buoyancy and freedom, especially with being one with the water. The liquid made up of hydrogen and oxygen makes one feel weightless, so when situations weighed on her, she thought about the feeling in the water. The thought of water didn’t fix everything, but realizing she had felt the feeling of freedom at one point helped her navigate the hardships. This book works well for readers and Scandal fans who are interested in inner child and teen healing, body positivity, career exploration, and genealogical discovery.
