Tag: book to tv

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book reviews

Book Review: ‘Detransition, Baby’ by Torrey Peters

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters explores the complexities of parenthood between two women and a man who unite in an effort to take care of a baby, but the closer they get, the more they convince themselves they’re making a mistake. 

Reese always wanted to be a mother. In fact, she acts as a mother figure in the New York City transgender community, taking in young trans women who remind her of herself when she first came to the city from the Midwest. Upon her arrival, she quickly became a go-to caretaker for children on the Upper East Side. She has the natural gift of taking care of others. One of the trans women she had taken under her wing was Amy, who returns in her life in a form she’s unfamiliar with. 

Ames is a marketing executive having a sultry fling with his recently divorced boss, Katrina. They soon realize they are expecting a baby. Katrina had a miscarriage during her marriage, so she’s nervous about the pregnancy. She’s also at the top of her game at work, and she’s unsure how a baby she’s having with a subordinate fits into her career plan post-divorce. Ames can’t believe he even impregnated a woman, but now that he has, he suggests bringing in an old friend to help parent the baby. 

When Reese sees Amy again, Amy is now known as Ames. Amy detransitioned from a trans woman back to a biological man. Ames explains how he thought years of taking hormones to live as a female would decrease his fertility. But now that a baby is coming, Ames wants to tap Reese to be a secondary mother and assist Katrina to raise the child. Reese always wanted to be a mother, and she feels her chances were dashed when she and Amy broke up. Now, who Reese still can’t believe is the Amy she used to love is offering the opportunity of motherhood.

Skeptical of the idea of becoming a mother by playing a third parent in raising another woman’s baby, Reese starts hanging out with Ames and Katrina to see if she can get onboard with the proposal. Katrina has questions and misconceptions of how Reese lives as a trans woman and how Ames lived as a trans woman. The clashes melt away once Reese and Katrina realize they are simply women who want to be mothers. It takes a village to raise a child. But when Katrina realizes why Reese and Amy broke up, she starts to rethink the concept of letting Reese play a mother and herself become a mother.

This is an eye-opening novel exploring a part of the New York City trans community rarely seen in mainstream media. Reports say that this book is one of the firsts written by a trans author to be distributed by a “big five” publisher. It’s refreshing to learn about how these fictional trans women feel they are competing with biological women to demonstrate their femaleness, including their capability and desire to become mothers. The author, who is a trans woman, spent time in the community to nail down the intricacies of the characters, their backgrounds, and their desires. 

The spectrum of characters represent different people who interact in the community. There is the trans person, the former trans person, and the cisgender, heterosexual person fighting their biases to accept someone they actually meet in real life who is trans. For Reese, her sex life is complicated with having committed lovers and secret lovers. The emotional struggle of identifying as female in a world that deidentifies her as not female makes her feel like she could never commit to a monogamous relationship long enough to raise a child with someone. For Ames, he detransitions soon after ending his relationship with Reese but still struggles on pinpointing what made him want to live as male again, especially when Reese pushes for answers. For Katrina, she is wrapping her brain around the fact she is having a baby with someone she didn’t know had lived as a woman for years, but her open-mindedness forces her to shake the anger and accept the perceived affection she’s receiving from Ames and now Reese. 

Overall, this novel again shows a community rarely magnified in the literary world. Pushing the boundaries that women who have penises also have desires to be mothers, and though it could be difficult to produce that child biologically depending on the partner, they will make a way to be mothers. Humankind, regardless of identities and circumstances, wants love, and this story shows the road for these characters finding that love unexpectedly with each other, though their inner demons try to destroy what they have. By the way, a TV series adaptation is in the works.

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what's lit

‘Passing’ Cast Members Discuss Differences Between Novel and Film in Netflix Book Club

Netflix

*Spoilers ahead! Read Passing, then check out the book review on shelit.com and watch the film on Netflix*

Netflix Book Club uploaded its first video episode in a series looking at the streaming giant’s film adaptations based on popular books. The inaugural selection is the almost century-old novel Passing by Nella Larsen that became Netflix’s most recent book-to-film adaptation that started streaming last week.

Now live on Netflix’s YouTube and Facebook channels, “But Have You Read The Book?” is hosted by Orange Is the New Black star Uzo Aduba sitting down at Starbucks Reserve Roastery New York with Passing film director Rebecca Hall and actors Ruth Negga and André Holland.

The film stars Tessa Thompson playing Irene Redfield, a Black woman in 1929 Harlem, who bumps into childhood friend Clare Kendry Bellew, played by Ruth, as they realize though they’re of the same race they are living on separate sides of the color line with Clare passing as a White woman. Based on the 1929 novel by Harlem Renaissance royalty Nella Larsen, the film and the book explores a toxic friendship where the two main characters wonder if the grass is greener on the other side as their lives unravel amid the fear of Clare’s dangerous secret becoming public.

Rebecca starts the book club conversation with what she says became stringing together her own family history with her grandfather being African American but living as a White man in the U.K.

“I grew up looking at my mother, thinking you’re a Black woman, you look to me like a Black woman, but that’s not in your lexicon,” she says. “It’s not how you’re talking about yourself. It’s not how you’re living your life because she wasn’t given that because her father was passing.” 

Once she read the book, she says she had a better understanding of the situation surrounding her grandfather and countless others like him.

“This book was a big turning point for me because I didn’t know that there was this word ‘passing,'” she says. “This was something that many, many, many people of color in this country did to get better lives for themselves.”

Passing, or assuming another usually racial identity based on appearance, became a pathway for people of color to pursue their dreams and unlock their potential, Ruth says.

“To be quite clear about passing, many times it wasn’t a rejection of yourself, your Black self,” she says. “It wasn’t a rejection of your Black culture at all. It was a choice to choose a path of access. Access to what we would call White privilege.” 

While her character Clare is considered the main one passing, the book unpacks the layers of Irene as a person also passing but in a different sense, such as a wife and friend becoming unstable when she believes she sees sparks fly between Clare and her husband Brian, played by André.

“Clare is obviously passing,” Rebecca says. “She’s gay when she needs to be. She’s straight when she needs to be. She behaves like a man when she needs to be. She behaves like a woman when she needs to be. She’s Black. She’s White. She’s this walking duality.”

Tessa Thompson, adorned in a Chanel choker, reads an excerpt in her taped cameo from when her character Irene notices the piercing gaze from Clare in the hotel tearoom where they reconnect. Irene is distraught the stranger—who she doesn’t know is her old friend Clare—could tell she’s a Black woman passing to gain entry into the posh hotel.

For slight changes in the film, Rebecca talks about how she allows Irene to reveal to her White author friend Hugh Wentworth, played by Bill Camp, that Clare is passing as White. It’s a dangerous move that Irene barely dodges in the book, failing to remove any suspicion of Clare at a time when she seems to notice Clare’s charisma suck the air out of a room and leave Irene envious. The book has Irene wrestle with revealing Clare’s secret, knowing she has the ante to destroy her friend while she also wants to protect her friend. 

Irene’s back-and-forth with herself doesn’t save Clare from her tragic demise after being found out by her White bigoted husband John, played by Alexander Skarsgård. As John bangs on the door of a party in Harlem full of Black guests, he darts toward Clare, calling her a liar. Clare positions herself in front of an open window to get away from John and closer to Irene, but the sway of arms somehow forces Clare to fall out of the fifth-story window and into the snow. But whose arm is at fault is a mystery in the book as well as the film.

“Nella Larsen keeps it ambiguous for a good reason,” Rebecca says. “She’s also pointing out that it doesn’t really matter because everyone is sort of complicit in something. And also whatever happened, Irene does feel like she was responsible.”

To sum up the story, Uzo says the phrase spoken by Irene when discussing Clare with Hugh about everything not appearing as it seems threads the film together.

“We’re watching characters who can exist and move through life in ways that might not be as they seem,” she says. “I think it was consistent with the larger narrative being told throughout.”

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film reviews

‘Passing’ Delves Into How Racial Identity Impacts the Life You Want

*Spoilers ahead! Read the book review on shelit.com and watch the film on Netflix or in select theaters*

Nella Larsen’s classic Passing is officially on the silver screen via Netflix telling the story of an ill-fated friendship between two fair-skinned Black women in 1920s Harlem that feels threatened with one woman assuming a White racial identity to fit in a racist society. 

Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga, André Holland, and Alexander Skarsgård star in the film set in the Roaring Twenties amid the Harlem Renaissance, with Rebecca Hall making her directorial debut. Shot in black-and-white, the film emphasizes those colors in the racial context and how they threaten the lives of Tessa Thompson’s Irene Redfield and Ruth Negga’s Clare Kendry Bellew. 

The story focuses on Irene and Clare reconnecting after they were separated as teenagers when Clare was sent away to live with her aunts after her father died. Living with her aunts, Clare learned how to pass as White and continued to do so in her marriage to international banker John Bellew while raising their daughter destined for boarding school in Switzerland. Irene is shocked Clare is living as a White woman, but she struggles with wondering what her life would be like if she passed. She’s decided to stay in Black Harlem with her Black family, her doctor husband Brian Redfield and their two sons. As both women wonder if the grass is greener on the other side, they realize the danger Clare has put herself in pretending to be what she’s not. 

Tessa Thompson plays Irene Redfield, the main character we see struggle with the emotions of letting this new version of Clare back into her life. Clare was just a forgettable childhood friend when Irene runs into her at a fancy Chicago hotel. To escape scorching temperatures, Irene seeks refuge there, depending on her fair skin to pass as White, a tactic that works. It turns out Clare is passing as well but full-time. 

Ruth Negga plays Clare Kendry Bellew, a Black woman hiding behind the visage of a White woman with her hard-to-miss dyed blonde hair and piled-on foundation to make her skin paler. When she spots Irene in the hotel’s tearoom, she sees an opportunity to connect with the Black community that she alienated long ago in an effort to forever live in carefree glamour. Except she knows she cannot be that carefree pretending to be White, yet she assumes the risk and sees if Irene could help her feel less lonely. 

While the book spaces their run-in and their meeting with Clare’s husband, the film puts the two defining events together. Once Irene realizes she is talking to Clare, they head to Clare’s room to talk more in-depth about their lives thus far. In the room, Clare explains her life and entices Irene to start passing. She even mentions how pregnancy was so hard on her in fear her daughter would come out dark-skinned and her raising her daughter now in hopes she never finds out her ethnicity. Irene rebuffs, saying her husband is dark-skinned and so are her two boys. Clare apologizes, not realizing that her fellow fair-skinned friend did not take the same route. Then Clare’s husband, John Bellew, played by Alexander Skarsgård, comes into the room. 

John calls Clare “Nig,” a shortened nickname from the n-word he bestowed upon her due to her tan. He claims Clare was “lily white” when they got married, but she’s been darkening ever since. To add insult to injury, he spews hate for Blacks and says Clare hates them even more. This, of course, makes Irene uncomfortable. She tries to get more answers for the root of this hate like if they know any Blacks, and the answers in the negative don’t satisfy Irene. She gets up and leaves. 

André Holland plays Dr. Brian Redfield, Irene’s husband, who at first doesn’t want his wife to spend time with Clare because of the incident at the hotel. The conversation comes up again due to a letter from Clare that Irene doesn’t want to open. Brian opens it instead and mocks Clare’s cries of loneliness written on paper. But a few weeks later, Clare shows up at the Redfield residence in Black Harlem wondering why her letter went unanswered. There, Irene and Brian are forced to deal with Clare. 

Though he did not want anything to do with Clare, Brian seems smitten with the charismatic Clare, who has heads turning everywhere she goes with the Redfields. Clare can finally be the socialite she wants to be since she’s with the Black elite and their White counterparts. Brian, on the other hand, can forget about his troubles of reading about lynchings in the South and educating his sons about the hatred toward their skin color. He wants to move out of the country to not be discriminated against for his race, but the idea hangs over him and Irene. To his wife, he seems unhappy in general, especially with Irene’s decision to avoid the lynching news at home, wanting to keep the boys innocent. With Clare, Brian looks like his frown has been turned upside down. 

The pressure of dealing with Clare the “princess”—what White author Hugh Wentworth, played by Bill Camp, calls her at the social functions—gets to Irene, who confides in Hugh when Brian dances and converses with Clare. We first meet Hugh at a dance in a Cotton Club-like setting where Irene invites Clare for the first time. Clare is dancing with every Black man like Hugh’s White wife, and Hugh and Irene talk about exoticism, the reason these White women want to dance with Black men. Then he picks up that Clare is passing, as Irene doesn’t expressly say it, but they talk about why someone would pass. In another scene, when Irene is already distraught over her emotions of having Clare in her life, Hugh lies to protect Irene when she drops a porcelain teakettle. The disturbance stops the party momentarily, with Clare staring at Irene, taking a break from her conversation with Brian and other partygoers. 

The more frustrated Clare becomes, the more depressed she is. While out shopping with her friend Felise, who in the book is described as having “golden” skin and “curly black Negro hair” and is played by Antoinette Crowe-Legacy, Irene bumps into John. He outstretches his hand, but Irene refuses and walks off. She tells Felise she met him the only time she passed as White. The details of Clare’s husband are omitted. But Irene knows that the jig is up for not only her but for Clare. 

The ending that seems as rushed in the film as it is in the book shows the dire consequences following Clare at all times, and how she finally is found out by her husband, and that discovery leads to her demise. Irene opens the window moments before to smoke a cigarette when John is screaming to see his wife. Partygoers try to tell John his wife wouldn’t be there, but John sees “Nig” and goes after her. Clare positions herself in front of the window beside Irene as protection, but she edges even closer to the window. As John lunges toward Clare, Irene puts her arm across Clare’s waist. What looks like more protection also looks like a nudge. Either way, Clare tumbles stories down to her death. Clare is frozen while everyone else rushes outside. Having Clare dead in the snow is fitting; she was passing for White and now dies in a blanket of whiteness. The image of her body in the snow is the final shot from higher dimensions. 

Ruth Negga plays Clare perfectly. From the piercing stares at Irene to the false upbeat attitude she exudes, Ruth gives Clare that mystery and that agitation the character feels in her life as a fake White woman alienating herself from her true identity, her true community. The first time we meet her reflects the scene of the book where Clare is staring at Irene. Seeing Clare onscreen compared to her description in the book is striking with the blonde hair and overdone face. Then, she calling Irene a nickname that sounds like it was bestowed upon her by Black folks shows an exuberant Clare who’s been looking for an outlet to her loneliness. The way Clare’s comfort and discomfort passes across Ruth’s facial expressions exhibits the emotional depth of not only pretending to be something you’re not, but feeling the pressure to pretend to be safe and still not feel safe in an era where Black people could not freely move around.

On the flip side, Tessa Thompson carries the Clare-induced uncertainty and anxiety in her facial features as Irene. Irene is scared she is going to lose her husband to Clare, her stature as a socialite to Clare, and her boys’ affection to Clare. Moments filled with these feelings in the film stick out, for example, with the boys, asking for Clare because Brian told them she’d be home. Irene is upset that Brian would tell them Clare would be there, seeing the excitement rev her family up so much for Clare, not her. In another scene, Clare befriends Zulena, the Redfields’ maid played by Ashley Ware Jenkins, and they bask in the wintry sunshine. Irene has to ask Zu a few times to take her bag of groceries when she walks in. Then, Irene heads upstairs with Clare following behind her. She tends to a flowerpot on her windowsill, but it falls from the second-story window and breaks outside. Irene is already feeling like things are breaking apart, but she has to pretend everything is alright to make sure Clare is comfortable. 

Internet reaction shows some criticism over biracial actresses Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga playing the characters since for today’s standards they appear Black, and the characters are supposed to be fair enough to appear White. Others argue that the actresses’ complexions would’ve passed the brown paper bag test and allow them to pass as White. Either way, both the actresses performed superbly with showing the intricacies of race for Black women in particular who want to live their best lives in America. Though the story reflects a contemporary time from a century ago, the hardships remain today. 

The film’s cast will be featured on Netflix Book Club‘s “But Have You Read the Book?” that will start streaming Nov. 16 on Netflix’s YouTube and Facebook channels and be hosted by Orange Is the New Black actress Uzo Aduba.

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what's lit

Netflix Book Club to Discuss Nella Larsen Classic ‘Passing’ in Time for Film Release

Coining itself the home of the “world’s most talked-about book adaptations,” streaming giant Netflix is debuting a book club series hosted by a star of one of its first book-to-TV hits. 

Orange Is the New Black star Uzo Aduba will host the Netflix Book Club‘s social series “But Have You Read the Book?” premiering Nov. 16 on streamer’s YouTube and Facebook channels. November’s book selection is Passing by Nella Larsen, which will also have a Nov. 10 book-to-film release on Netflix starring Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson.

The first book club episode will have Uzo interview the film’s stars and director Rebecca Hall.

Netflix

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked friends, ‘But have you read the book?’ So I’m excited to host Netflix Book Club and bring together loyal book fans, TV and movie obsessives and the creators behind their favorite stories,” Uzo said in a statement. “I can’t wait to dive deep into the creative process and what it takes to bring a book to life.”

Passing follows two Black women who are fair-skinned enough to pass as White. Clare Kendry sees her childhood friend Irene Redfield in a hotel, and they chat about what life has been like since their upbringing in Chicago. Irene quickly learns that Clare has been passing full-time as a White woman married to a White man who has no idea his wife is Black. With her complexion, Irene can pass, too, but she chooses to have her Black family and engage with the Black community she’s always known. Clare tries to convince Irene she is living the ideal life until Irene meets Clare’s bigoted husband and realizes the danger Clare has put herself in. Both women struggle to have each other in their lives in case anyone finds out their shared secret.

Nella Larsen, who was born in 1891 to a Black father from the Danish West Indies and a White mother from Denmark, was considered one of the most well-known female authors during the Harlem Renaissance. Passing, her second novel released in 1929 after her debut Quicksand, soon became a standout at the time in the elite arts community, rivaling the popularity of Zora Neale Hurston‘s 1937 classic Their Eyes Were Watching God. Nella received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a third novel in 1930, according to her current publisher Penguin Random House, but she couldn’t find a publisher. She died in 1964.

Passing also has enjoyed modern-day success thanks to the film and the best-selling gold of Brit Bennett’s 2019 literary fiction masterpiece The Vanishing Half about fair-skinned Black twin sisters who lead separate lives as one decides to live her life as a White woman. Brit, who recently had a book-signing cameo on HBO‘s Insecure, wrote the introduction to the newest copies of Passing. The Vanishing Half is being developed into a miniseries for HBO.

“From Bridgerton, To All the Boys and Sweet Magnolias to Queen’s Gambit, Unorthodox, Virgin River and of course Orange Is the New Black, Netflix loves bringing books to life on screen and creating conversation with passionate readers and fans,” said Netflix chief marketing officer Bozoma Saint John in a statement about the book club series. The marketing maven herself has a forthcoming book with Viking Books called The Urgent Life that will be focused on her life during and after her late husband’s cancer diagnosis.

Starbucks is partnering with Netflix to bring the book club to social media.

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what's lit

‘The Perfect Find’ Lands New Home at Grand Central Publishing

Originally released under an indie publisher, best-selling author Tia Williams’ novel The Perfect Find is being re-released via Grand Central Publishing.

The top publisher released Tia’s latest novel Seven Days in June this summer. The book made The New York Times Best Sellers list and became Reese’s Book Club’s June selection.

Published in 2016, The Perfect Find came out under Brown Girls Books managed by authors ReShonda Tate Billingsley and Victoria Christopher Murray. Victoria currently has a NY Times best-seller out now called The Personal Librarian co-authored by Marie Benedict. On its website, the publisher says it’s not currently accepting submissions.

Tia’s book will be turned into an upcoming Netflix film starring Gabrielle Union, Gina Torres, La La Anthony, and Aisha Hinds. Announcing production wrapped last month on Instagram, Gabrielle also serves as a producer as she starts her own book tour for her second memoir You Got Anything Stronger? this month. In her Instagram post on Wednesday, Tia revealed the film is expected to be available for streaming next spring.

The new version of The Perfect Find will be on bookshelves Sept. 14, according to the author’s post.

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what's lit

How ‘Younger’ Painted an Insanely Glamorous, Somewhat Diverse Publishing World

TV Land

Spoiler alert: The post below reveals storylines from the seventh season of Younger.

Literary industry cable series Younger wrapped up a successful seven seasons this summer. Though racial and ethnic diversity took a backseat to the storylines, the show still put diversity and inclusion in the forefront of an industry struggling to fulfill its promises.

Created by Sex and the City and Beverly Hills 90210 visionary Darren Star, Younger follows a 40-something White woman named Liza Miller, played by Broadway veteran Sutton Foster, who knocks her age down to 26 to get her foot back into the door of the publishing industry after raising her daughter and divorcing her husband. Based on Pamela Redmond Satran’s 2005 novel of the same name, the show started on TV Land in 2015 and moved to Paramount+ this year.

The show featured diversity markers, mainly with age and gender, in a fictional publishing scene made to look obscenely glamorous. Recent data from Lee & Low Books finds that the literary industry as a whole is 74% cisgender female, but when it comes to executive leadership positions, the number is down to 60%. On Younger, the main female characters are striving to retain and maintain leadership throughout the series to elevate works by women.

Amplifying younger voices

“Younger” Ep. 603 (Airs 6/26/19)

After lying about her age, Liza earns the coveted job of an editorial assistant at traditional publishing powerhouse Empirical. To make matters more complicated, Liza is paired up with actual 26-year-old Kelsey Peters, played by Hilary Duff, whose ambition oozes to make books more appealing to millennials.

This eventually leads to the two creating an imprint called Millennial, not only multiplying books by Gen Y authors but also taking a focus on female authors in the age group. As they are underestimated by Empirical and the industry at large, Liza and Kelsey build a behemoth of an imprint that in its final season begins suffering from hits by Empirical’s old White male investors.

This motivated the pair to create Inkubator, a spoken word event series featuring promising millennial authors ready to have their work published.

Women supporting women

“Younger” Ep. 501 (Airs 6/5/18)

Helping Liza and Kelsey on their literary adventures and misadventures are editor Diana Trout, known for her brusqueness and over-the-top statement necklaces, who is played by Miriam Shor who did not return for the final season; Lauren Heller, the carefree bisexual social media enthusiast played by Molly Bernard who replaces Diana’s presence in the Empirical office as an assistant; and Maggie Amato, the lesbian artist played by legend Debi Mazar who owns the fabulous loft they all seem to live in at one point in the series.

They become this unbreakable group, along with one man—Liza’s millennial ex, Josh, played by Nico Tortorella, a tattoo artist entrepreneur with a heart of gold. Liza goes back and forth with Josh and Empirical’s editor in chief, Charles Brooks, the well-meaning head honcho who is age-appropriate for Liza played by Peter Hermann. Having sexual relations with the boss while editing his ex-wife’s novel is one of the situations that comes up with the ill-begotten romance between Liza and Charles. This novel leaped offscreen onto our bookshelves as Marriage Vacation reviewed by she lit.

With all the drama mostly involving Liza’s back-and-forth relationships, the girl group feeds on their mistakes with men and women. The girlboss-in-making Kelsey seems to be pick the men who want to compete with her success in one way or another, with one ill-fated relationship leading to a death by scaffolding (very NYC) and an evil twin (very soapy). As Liza and Kelsey lean on Maggie, Lauren, and Diana, they also support female writers with some of the most familiar scenes of the series occurring in the closed office session with a new writer who is revolutionizing the newer subgenres, e.g. sick lit, teen environmentalist memoir, and boomer erotica.

Shelving racial diversity

“Younger” Ep. 612 (Airs 9/04/19)

The show’s cast is all-White, which is normal on TV shows to have an entire cast of the same racial makeup, but it resonates with the real-life publishing industry, unfortunately. The show failed to right this diversity and inclusion oversight with its choice of guest stars in earlier seasons.

Charles Michael Davis, who played Kelsey’s frenemy lover Zane Anders for three seasons, added much-needed melanin as a regular cast member, but he and his character had to depart in the final season due to his commitment to NCIS: New Orleans. As his character left the script, the show featured two writer characters who contributed to Millennial’s next phase.

Dylan Park, played by Yeena Sung, appeared in “The F Word,” the episode that introduces Inkubator. She is a future author with a novel that Kelsey and Liza try to get published through Empirical since Millennial by this time has been absorbed into the publisher thanks to the investors’ wishes. But editor in chief Charles is not interested, so Kelsey and Liza have the novel published by a release of a chapter every week in The Cut. Though an Asian American millennial female author is brought into the storyline, she only makes one appearance, failing to become a substantive character while her book really becomes the character.

The final season then brings in another author of color, Azealia King, played by De’Adre Aziza, a Black woman who has won the National Book Award. She’s so impressive that Charles wants to publish her next book. Her character appears in the last two episodes, almost as if the writer’s room realized they didn’t have enough female authors of color featured throughout the series.

Out of an industry that is 74% cisgender female, publishing is 76% White, according to the Lee and Low Books’ report. Numbers for professionals of color are broken down by 7% Asian descent, 6% Latino/Latina, 5% African descent, and less than 1% Native American and Middle Eastern.

Despite the diversity successes and failures of imagining the cutthroat Manhattan book publishing scene into an addictive summer TV series, the show still gives feel-good vibes and is expertly written with relatable moments. Live or relive the half-hour series on Paramount+ and Hulu.

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film reviews

Tia Williams’ ‘The Perfect Find’ Book-to-Film Attracts More Stars

Women’s fiction author Tia Williams‘ 2016 novel is evolving into a Netflix film amid the Hollywood COVID-19 disruption with the assistance of actress and producer Gabrielle Union.

The Perfect Find follows a 40-year-old single Black fashion magazine editor who’s at odds with her new boss. But when she finds love in the workplace with the videographer half her age, she learns it’s her boss’ son. Gabrielle will star in the Netflix/AGC Studios film as main character Jenna Jones and produce under her company I’ll Have Another, named in conjunction with her 2017 memoir We’re Going to Need More Wine.

According to Deadline, Niecy Nash and Keith Powers will join the cast with Numa Perrier joining as director. On the film’s IMDb page, it reads Keith will play Eric, the 20-year-old co-worker boo opposite Gabrielle’s character. Tia confirmed on her Instagram Thursday that Niecy will play Darcy, Jenna’s nemesis and Eric’s mother. The script’s head writer is Leigh Davenport, whose recent projects include Lifetime’s Wendy Williams: The Movie and BET’s Boomerang.

In pre-production, the film does not have a release date yet but is expected to be on Netflix.

The book was published by Brown Girls Books following Tia’s 2004 debut chick lit novel The Accidental Diva and 2007’s young adult series It Chicks. Her next novel, Seven Days in June, will be released in June under Grand Central Publishing.

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film reviews

Why ‘Waiting to Exhale’ Has Staying Power Onscreen

From left, Loretta Devine, Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, and Lela Rochon in "Waiting to Exhale."IMDb

Today is the 25th anniversary of Waiting to Exhale‘s cinematic debut, a film that brought a never-before-seen look into the ’90s grown Black female experience. The timing coincides with author sisters Attica and Tembi Locke embarking on a project to bring Terry McMillan’s best-selling novel to TV. Currently in pre-production, the series is following in the footsteps of the 1995 film and adding the TV binge element to screen.

Mystery novelist and Empire screenwriter Attica Locke and her sister, memoirist and actress Tembi Locke, are under a script commitment with ABC and Empire creator Lee Daniels to bring the story to TV, according to Deadline. The entertainment website also noted in November that Terry McMillan will serve as a consulting producer. It’s been 25 years since Waiting to Exhale sparked a cultural phenomenon among Black female viewers who wanted to see their stories onscreen.

The film Waiting to Exhale starred the late singer Whitney Houston as Savannah, a TV producer who longs for a married man; Angela Bassett as Bernadine, a mother of two whose husband is leaving her for a White woman; Loretta Devine as Gloria, an overweight single mother who owns a hair salon; and Lela Rochon as Robin, an executive trying to elevate from mistress to wife. The story and film is set in Phoenix, Arizona, a city known for a low Black population but symbolically represents a phoenix rising from the ashes and starting over.

In Dorothy Butler Gilliam’s 2019 memoir Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist’s Fight to Make the Media Look More Like America about being the first Black female reporter at The Washington Post, she discusses the cultural impact of the film that opened in theaters on Dec. 22, 1995. She recounts the moment with her friend and Post executive, Joyce Richardson, and quotes her saying:

“‘Just like the friendship of the characters Gloria, Robin, Savannah, and Bernadine, our get-togethers lifted us up when we were down, helped us network, gave us shoulders to lean on, advice when we needed it, and a safe place to share the good and bad times,” she said. “Each of us could connect with the issues that these women had in one way or another.'”

The novel became a No. 1 best-seller and the film hit No. 1 on Christmas weekend 1995, dominating over Disney and Pixar’s first computer-animated venture Toy Story, Jumanji, and Grumpier Old Men.

The book’s characters are trying to figure out their relationships with men, which impact family, faith, and career, but it brings them closer as a way to de-stress. Friendship between women over men troubles is a common theme in works, but Waiting to Exhale incorporates the Black female perspective, which in 1992 was rare in contemporary literature.

With the 2000s HBO series Sex and the City still in reruns based on a novel by Candace Bushnell, the stories don’t age with time. But with Black women as the stars during a time when 47% of Black adults are single in a dating-app world, according to recent data from the Pew Research Center, the new show could resonate on a higher level than it did 25 years ago.

How the new version of Waiting to Exhale will be perceived in the #MeToo era, where women are looking for female friendships but may not be bonding over men trouble, has yet to be seen.

Amid the #BlackStoriesMatter movement sparked by the George Floyd protests, Terry McMillan tweeted earlier this year that she wasn’t getting the same amount of interest for her 2020 novel, It’s Not All Downhill From Here.

Attica Locke released her latest book, Heaven, My Home, last year. She’s also worked on the Netflix miniseries When They See Us about the Black men formerly known as the Central Park Five. Her sister, Tembi Locke, is an actress and wrote a grief memoir, From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home, about moving forward without her late husband. The memoir, a former Reese’s Book Club pick, is on track to become a film on Netflix with the aid of Hollywood bookwoman Reese Witherspoon.

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what's lit

Gabrielle Union Adds ‘Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls’ to #BookToTV Roster

Actress and producer Gabrielle Union will be giving Anissa Gray’s debut novel The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls the TV treatment.

Entertainment news outlet Deadline reported this week that the novel has a first-look production deal with Sony Pictures Television and Gabrielle’s production company I’ll Have Another, a play off her 2017 memoir title We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True.

A first-look deal is a contractual agreement between a well-known actor/director/producer/writer and their production company and another production company, network, or studio that will have first rights to consider the project by financially supporting the project during development.

“Thank you @gabunion for wanting to bring the women of Care and Feeding to the screen,” Anissa wrote on her Instagram. “They could not have a better champion.”

Erika L. Johnson will be the main writer on the series and serve as executive producer. Her résumé includes book-to-TV show Queen Sugar based on the novel by Natalie Baszile.

https://twitter.com/ErikasWrite/status/1316781637871398913

I’ll Have Another has also acquired other bookish projects including The Idea of You by Robinne Lee and The Perfect Find by Tia Williams, which Deadline reported in June will be a Netflix film.

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book reviews

Book Review: ‘Paper Gods’ by Goldie Taylor

Paper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and PoliticsPaper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and Politics by Goldie Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Paper Gods by Goldie Taylor is a political thriller centered in Atlanta where characters pretend to be sweet as syrup to the public and wicked in private.

Equipped with degrees from Spelman College and Harvard Law, Atlanta mayor Victoria Dobbs is a force to be reckoned with. Her shiny life with her cardiac surgeon husband Marshall Overstreet and their twin daughters, Maya and Mahalia, after poet Angelou and gospel singer Jackson, is enviable. When her mentor Congressman Ezra Hawkins is shot dead by a sniper in the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, Victoria finds a red origami dragon beside Hawkins’ body. She takes it and tries to decipher the meaning since she’s seen one before. But Hawkins’ position is up for grabs, and Victoria wants it. As she announces her run in the special election, uber-wealthy White men Virgil Loudermilk and his cousin-brother Whit Delacourte look for their own candidate to snatch Victoria’s power. It turns out mostly Loudermilk’s actions have sinister origins, connected to a committee of White politicos arranging for Democratic Black politicos to hold city positions like mayor but not state positions like governor, reserved for mostly White Republicans. The forced racial divide in politics has piqued the interest of veteran reporter Hampton Bridges as he’s been pursuing the story for years. His snooping has placed him on the blacklist for Victoria, Loudermilk, and Delacourte. He’s also been a victim of a suspicious car crash with his latest college-age girl in the front seat that raises more concern. While everyone is trying to hide their secrets and dodge threats, they are making sure they protect their best interests no matter who gets killed in the process.

This novel explores the dual identity most politicos presumably live with. Mayor Dobbs, for example, is the impeccable Black woman worthy of likeability, but she’s also pulling strings behind the scenes to make sure she stays on top. Loudermilk and Delacourte remain top lawyers at major companies throughout the Atlanta region while pulling the strings in overall state politics. Everyone’s hands in this story are dirty and get filthier by the page. The amount of scandal that multiplies for each character makes it a page-turner, especially as characters get killed or almost killed. What incites character empathy is how the characters try to protect their families, with many members having the Southern-style double first name.

Overall, the novel is an entertaining take on the fictional political atmosphere that reads like a smooth investigative magazine piece. The author is the editor-at-large at The Daily Beast, so she uses many of the characters’ last names as their main names, meaning it’s written with journalistic flair. Read this book before the John Legend-produced ABC series starring Nia Long comes out. Also, the audiobook is hard to follow with the plethora of detail, especially all the names, and popular reader Bahni Turpin’s voice doesn’t vibe with the material.

View all my reviews

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what's lit

Renée Watson’s YA Novel ‘Piecing Me Together’ Gets Film Treatment

An award-winning young adult novel by Renée Watson has received the green light for a film adaptation.

Variety reports the novel will become a film produced by Warner Horizon Television with the author serving as a consultant.

Piecing Me Together follows an artistic Black teenager coming-of-age in Portland, Oregon, where she attends a predominantly White high school on scholarship and lives with her family in a low-income Black neighborhood.

Released in 2017, the novel is published under Bloomsbury Children’s Books. The next year, it won the John Newbery Medal, which is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. Renée also became the 2018 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author Winner.

The TV film project is in the early stages, according to Variety.

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what's lit

‘Paper Gods’ Author Goldie Taylor Shares Inspiring Words After Book Picked Up for TV

The Daily Beast editor-at-large Goldie Taylor will have her 2018 best-selling sexy thriller Paper Gods turned into a series produced by John Legend.

John’s production company is teaming up with actress/producer Nia Long to bring the novel to the silver screen. Nia will also star in the ABC series.

Once the news broke, Goldie tweeted her gratitude about the project but also inspired writers to begin their careers.

Paper Gods surrounds the life of a fictional Atlanta mayor who seems to be living the perfect life with her Ivy League credentials, heart surgeon husband, and twin daughters. Then her world is turned upside down when her congressman friend is gunned down. In the congressman’s Bible, she finds a “paper god,” an origami marker that turns up at the sight of other murders across the city. She has to solve the mystery before her own potential murder.

The novel is published under the All Points Books and St. Martin’s Publishing Group imprints with Macmillan Publishers.

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what's lit

‘The Claudia Kishi Club’ Shows Love to Beloved ‘Baby-sitters Club’ Member

Asian American creatives describe how Claudia Kishi of The Baby-sitters Club series defined their upbringings in the 1990s.

The companion documentary The Claudia Kishi Club from director Sue Ding premiered Friday on Netflix, a week after the latest rendition of The Baby-sitters Club topped the viewing list.

Birthed in 1986 by Ann M. Martin, The Babysitters Club followed five middle schoolers then eventually seven who start their babysitting business in the fictional Stoneybrook, Connecticut as they deal with family issues, boy issues, and school issues. Of the original four is Claudia Kishi, who is Japanese American yet broke the model minority myth by failing her classes and prioritizing her art and fashion.

This is the sentiment of the creatives who participated in the 17-minute documentary. Those creatives include Naia Cucukov, executive producer on The Baby-Sitters Club series and executive vice president of development and production at Walden Media, the series’ production company; Yumi Sakugawa, comic artist; Sarah Kuhn, author of the Heroine Complex series featuring Asian American superheroes; C.B. Lee, author of the middle grade Sidekick Squad series; Gale Galligan, the illustrator behind The Baby-sitters Club graphic novels; and Phil Yu, the creator of the Angry Asian Man blog.

Claudia Kishi has been played by Jeni F. Winslow for the 1990 TV series that aired on HBO, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon; Tricia Joe for the 1995 motion picture; and now Momona Tamada for the new Netflix series.

In the 1980s and 1990s, girls of color looked for the girls of color that represented them the most on TV, films, and books. Claudia became the literary heroine to look up to for Asian American girls.

“Usually the Asian American character or the woman of color character is the one you sorta feel you have to be,” said Sarah Kuhn. “Like if you’re playing Harry Potter, then you have to be Cho Chang where I feel like Claudia is the one everyone seems to want to be.”

Also the limited representation, or faulty representation, made a lot of girls of color question their visibility.

“You don’t see mirrors of yourself, thinking I’m broken or I’m not normal or I don’t exist. These thoughts are kinda subconscious,” said C.B. Lee. They’re pervasive, especially when you go on thinking that the world—or when you perceive the world as a world without you in it.”

The faulty representation also came from the lack of women of color being in charge of these media projects with mostly White women controlling the narrative.

“There’s definitely that quality of othering for sure where you know a lot of these stories are being told from the perspectives of young White girls,” said Gale Galligan. “In terms of racial representation—how do I put this?—I noticed that most of the people were White.”

The Baby-sitters Club famously switched perspectives between the seven members by telling their backgrounds in all of their books. With her Japanese heritage, Claudia is always described by her Asian features, which the creatives in the documentary found as offensive language that struck a chord.

“They somewhat problematically described her as having ‘almond-shaped eyes’ and ‘jet-black hair’ and ‘super-beautiful skin’ though she eats tons of junk food,” said Yumi Sakugawa.

The members include Kristy Thomas, the bossy president and founder; Claudia the vice president; Mary Anne Spier, the shy secretary; Anastasia “Stacey” McGill, the fun New York City girl and treasurer; Dawn Schafer, the fun California girl and alternate officer; Mallory Pike, the writer and junior officer; and Jessica “Jessi” Ramsey, the ballerina and junior officer.

For redheads, Mallory is the picture of representation as Jessi is for Black girls. Mallory and Jessi were introduced into the club later into the series as eleven-year-olds, so they have limited appearances in the Netflix show that just focuses on the original members.

Claudia is the only one who owns a landline, so the meetings take place in her bedroom where the girls exchange candy and other junk food that Claudia provides. Along with being the artsy candy lover, she is a horrible student always competing with older sister, Janine, who exceeds in school and speaks Japanese.

Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World, wrote the sixth episode titled “Claudia and Mean Janine,” also the title of the seventh book in the series published in 1988.

The author and now TV writer will be a part of “A Celebration of Claudia Kishi” along with Momona Tamada, Naia Cucukov; Heather Jack, director of episode “Dawn and the Impossible Three,” and The Claudia Kishi Club director Sue Ding. Hosted by Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, Gold House, Japanese American National Museum, and Netflix, the webinar will be held Monday, July 13 at 5 p.m. PST.

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what's lit

‘The Vanishing Half’ Highlights Racial Passing Along with Previous Well-Known Novels

Perched on The New York Times Best Sellers list for the past four weeks with an HBO miniseries in the works, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is the anti-racism novel we need right now as the country grips with another tide of facing race relations.

The Vanishing Half, a novel in the 350-page range in the hardcover format, follows light-skinned Black twin sisters as they run away from their unique Louisiana town with only people of their complexions to New Orleans in the 1950s. As they adjust to their new lives, one twin disappears without a trace to pass as White to marry her White boss while the other one returns home after her abusive marriage to a dark-skinned Black man.

The colorism conversation when it comes to “passing”—when someone decides to disguise themselves in another race or ethnicity for a better quality of life—has been seen in previous books from decades prior when the act was practiced more often.

Passing was more common in the early 20th century amid the Great Migration and European immigration defining the big cities. Mostly when passing is mentioned, it’s in reference to Blacks with complexions light enough to pass as White, but European immigrants also practiced this with some considered to have darker skin like Italians passing for Jews, Jews passing for Gentiles, Poles passing for Germans, and Whites passing for Blacks, according to Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature by Werner Sollors.

At the end of The Vanishing Half, Brit says she was inspired by Imitation of Life, more the 1959 film rather than the 1933 novel it was based on by White Jewish author Fannie Hurst, who came under fire at the time for stereotypical presentations of the Black mother character as a Mammy figure and her light-skinned daughter as a tragic mulatta passing as White. Culturally, it’s become a cinematic classic with Black mothers using the film as a cautionary tale for their Black daughters to not neglect their matriarchs under any circumstances, especially for White privilege.

During the Harlem Renaissance, Fannie also was a secretary for now-celebrated author Zora Neale Hurston while famed poet Langston Hughes created a satire play of Imitation of Life that reversed the roles with a Black family and a White maid. For insight on the tumultuous friendship of Zora and Langston mainly due to their relationships with others in the movement and their disagreements about their plays, check out Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal by Yuval Taylor.

The practice of passing has left holes in Black families since the end of slavery, and it’s a topic that’s still relevant today as people may or may not defend their ethnicities based on their looks. Nella Larsen, a biracial author from the Harlem Renaissance wrote a 1929 novel called Passing, a tale about two Black childhood friends in 1920s New York who are both light-skinned enough to pass as White. One woman does pass while the other stays in the Black community, similar to The Vanishing Half. Starring actresses Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga, Passing will be a film set for release this year, according to IMDb.

Nella, a daughter of a Danish woman and a Danish West Indian man, was considered a rising star in the Harlem Renaissance with Passing and her only other novel Quicksand. After becoming the first Black woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship that she used for an artistic journey through Europe, she returned to New York and her nursing career, shedding her novelist life. With growing up in an all-White family after her father died and her mother remarried, her novels are considered semi-autobiographical.

The Passing film’s directors, Deborah Riley Draper and Jennifer Galvin, are also developing a TV series on the book described as “Downton Abbey meets Get Out.” And with The Vanishing Half also being turned into a miniseries for TV, stories on the history of racial passing, particularly for Black women, may gain more attention.

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what's lit

Author Jia Tolentino and Model Kaia Gerber Discuss What to Take From ‘Trick Mirror’ During Quarantine

The novel coronavirus quarantine has produced another celebrity book club. Supermodel Kaia Gerber, daughter of the legendary Cindy Crawford, started a book club that’s already receiving praise from fans and young Hollywood.

Now a month into her book club, she had an Instagram Live conversation with Jia Tolentino, the author of Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, on Friday night with an average high of 2,200 viewers. Kaia started the chat saying she found the book to be a refreshing take on modern-day philosophy.

This is how publisher Penguin Random House describes the essay collection: “Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die.”

A staff writer at The New Yorker, Jia talked about the ills of the internet and social media, a focus in her book, but also mentioned its current necessity as we grapple with self-isolation and quarantine due to the coronavirus crisis. Jia brought up how the internet and social media has made people perform for attention. She asked Kaia about her personal experiences since the Gen Z model has 5.5 million followers due to her career and stature.

Now 18, Kaia said she started her Instagram at 14 and noticed how social media can change a person and their professional goals and give more attention to influencers rather than, for example, doctors and nurses who are saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The internet, for better for worse, is the biggest change of this era,” Jia said during the conversation. “It’s become this nervous system of our society… There’s an unavoidable centrality to it that seems like every story in a way is an internet story, no matter what.” She added we have a natural impulse to be seen, to be recognized, to be liked, and the business of social media takes these behaviors and monetizes “every inch of human life.”

They discussed how social media and the internet has to be impacting teens’ lives now and adding unique pressures never before experienced. Jia, a millennial who said she graduated during the Great Recession, said it would’ve been “dark” if she owned a smartphone in high school. With dreams to attend Columbia University, Kaia said as social media became a regular existence around her and she became hyper cautious in order to stay clean for college application times.

Jia pointed out to the feminism parts of the book where women were not able to apply for credit cards alone until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974 and how marriage is supposed to be the main life-changing event for a woman. Kaia brought up how her mother’s wedding dress was revolutionary in a way because it was a slip dress when sexy was looked down upon for a bride.

The chat came to a close with Jia saying how clear it is during the coronavirus quarantine that we can’t wholly replace in-person interaction with the internet and social media. Kaia said she would read anything else Jia writes and added the excitement of being able to have the conversation:

“This is the coolest thing ever. Truly the only people I fangirl over are writers and authors because I admire it so much because the idea of sitting down and writing an entire book is so intimidating to me, but I would read all of them.”

Earlier in the month, Kaia had an Instagram Live chat with the stars of Normal People on Hulu, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal. The TV series is based on Sally Rooney’s literary fiction book about two unlikely friends who develop a complex relationship in high school then college.

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what's lit

‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Picture Perfect

The latest episode of Little Fires Everywhere continues to pit two mothers and their children against each other during a child custody trial that’s rocking their quaint Ohio suburb.

Elena Richardson, played by Reese Witherspoon, is a wealthy homemaker and journalist who rented a cottage to Mia Warren, played by Kerry Washington, without checking her background. But as they become more acquainted with each other and their teen kids become friends, they notice they have different perceptions of motherhood.

Elena’s best friend Linda McCullough, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, is about to adopt a Chinese baby who had been abandoned at a local fire station. It turns out Mia’s work friend Bebe, played by Lu Huang, left her baby at the fire station in the throes of a postpartum depression breakdown. Once Mia realizes that Bebe’s  daughter May Ling is really the baby Linda plans to adopt whom she named Mirabelle, she helps Bebe fight for the baby. But Elena gets behind her friend, too, and now she and Mia are fighting each other over a baby that belongs to neither of them.

LOVING WHO YOU LOVE

The episode starts with Elena’s youngest daughter Izzy, played by Megan Stott, going to a house party months before with her best friend. They run into a spin-the-bottle game which in turns leads to 7 Minutes In Heaven. Izzy spins the bottle and lands on her friend. They go into the closet after being forced by the other teens. Inside, they touch each other romantically; they already had done this before. They start kissing until a boy opens the door in shock of them kissing with the other kids staring. The friend shouts at Izzy and accuses her of molestation.

Throughout the miniseries so far, Izzy has had a difficult time fitting into high school because of her relationship with the friend, who is now popular, while Izzy has sunken into a depression for being misunderstood. Their fracture is finally explained. Until the friend makes it worse again.

Later, Izzy and her friend are going through boxes of old dolls. Izzy asks her friend why she put the blame on her, and her friend says the peer pressure made her freak out and she rolled with it. At school, the next day Izzy brings the Cabbage Patch dolls and places magazine cutouts of faces and places them on the dolls. She’s selling the dolls based on race—Asian for the $10,000 the Elena offered to Bebe on behalf of the McCulloughs, white for $100,000, and black for free—to make a statement about the May Ling/Mirabelle case that has gripped the community. When students come up her outraged about the stunt, her friend throws Izzy under the bus again. In disbelief, Izzy is staring at her ex-friend when the principal comes to shut the social experiment down.

RICH GIRL, POOR GIRL

Mia’s daughter Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood, has led a vagabond lifestyle since she could ever remember with her artist mom, but now after settling in Shaker Heights, Ohio, she’s done. In last week’s episode, we learn Elena has crossed state lines to do a deep-dive investigation into Mia’s past where she learns Mia was supposed to be a surrogate mother but instead skipped town with Pearl and raised Pearl as her own child. Two episodes ago, Mia sells an old photograph by her former lover for thousands of dollars to help Bebe with her legal defense.

Pearl doesn’t know any of this. When her pseudo-boyfriend and eldest Richardson son Trip, played by Jordan Elsass, tells her he overheard his mother saying that her mother is paying for Bebe’s lawyer and had a lot money, half a million stashed somewhere, Pearl grows suspicious.

At home, Mia comes into Pearl’s bedroom wanting to talk. Pearl asks laughingly if it’s about the half a million and if she’s paying Bebe’s legal bills. Mia admits she sold a piece of art reserved for a rainy day. Pearl becomes angry that her mother received a large sum of money and didn’t spend it on their family. Instead, Mia spent the money on Bebe, whom she only known for three months. Pearl screams for her mother to leave.

The next day, Pearl tells Trip that she never had what she wanted. She shares a story of living on the property of a family with a girl who had horses. Pearl wanted everything the girl had. It upset her that the girl can have anything, and Pearl rarely had a bed. This is a revelation that though the Warrens lived as if they were in poverty but also lived in ritzy areas where Pearl has grown accustomed to seeing what other kids like her have and feeling deprived of such luxuries.

TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH

The name of the episode comes from Elena’s obsession to get the Christmas family portrait just right. In the beginning, she rejects the photos they had already taken, rendering them useless. After her oldest daughter Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn, gets into Yale University, she throws a nice dinner and invites the photographer back to the house for a redo.

During the photo session, the Richardsons are patiently waiting for Izzy. When Izzy shows up without the plaid Keds her mother requested to match other family members’ accessories, Elena throws a fit. We see later Izzy had gone back and put on the Keds, but she is sticking her middle finger in the photo Elena is already stuffing into cards. The Richardson patriarch Bill, played by Joshua Jackson, notices the faux pas. Soon, Elena begins chopping Izzy out of the dozens of copies.

When Mia returns home, she finds a distraught Izzy in her family room. Izzy had ran out of her mother’s car after she had to get picked up over the doll-selling debacle. They talk about the dolls, but Mia eventually admits about loving her art professor—a woman—which surprises and soothes Izzy to let her know nothing was wrong with her trying to find romance with her best girl friend.

When Izzy returns home, she finds the cutup photos of her in the trash. She collects them and tries to piece them together on her bedroom carpet.

RACE EQUATION

As Izzy tries to figure out her slashed photos, Lexie comes in and tells her she broke up with boyfriend Brian, played by Stevonte Hart.

Earlier they had another race-based argument. Brian is still upset with Lexie when she used Pearl’s essay to get into a higher math class that she was first rejected for because she was black. Lexie reworks the essay and submits it with college applications, and now she’s headed to Yale. This doesn’t sit right again with Brian, who plans to attend Princeton University.

They’re in the fast food drive-thru when Lexie sends her hamburger back; she didn’t want the meat, just a grilled cheese sandwich. The attendant, who’s black, explains that wasn’t in the order but takes the burger back when Lexie insists it was. Brian in the driver seat tells Lexie he feels like she sent it back because the attendant is black. Lexie is upset that he thinks that’s the reason. When Lexie gets the burger sans the burger, Brian still seems unsure about Lexie’s unnecessary action.

Later on Lexie’s bed, Brian brings up the race issue again. He asks Lexie if she sees his blackness because everyone else does. He won’t be seen as a smart kid who got into Princeton because everyone will assume he’s an affirmative action case. Lexie tearfully explains herself, that’s she not racist, and though she turned Pearl’s story into hers, she didn’t mean for it to happen that way. Her whitesplaining doesn’t agree with Brian. When Lexie sees she’s not getting her way, she wants to tell him about the abortion but instead she tells him to leave.

Their heartbreaking breakup shows how deciding to ignore how race plays a major factor in society like Lexie can make a partner feel like they’re not being seen at all because their race is a part of their identity. Lexie uses the she-doesn’t-see-color excuse, and Brian asks what does she see. It’s hard for her to say to him as a person when he sees his blackness as a part of the equation.

SECRETS REVEALED

The entire episode Elena and Mia are taunting each other as the trial for custody of May Ling/Mirabelle starts. In the court bathroom, Elena tells Mia that she knows her secret that Pearl wasn’t meant to be her child but a child for the Ryans, a couple she was a surrogate for while in art school. Elena even admits she visited Mia’s parents. Mia is taken aback by the revelation.

Meanwhile, Elena is pushing Bill to use the evidence in court as her husband defends Linda’s family, the McCulloughs. He tells Elena she doesn’t need to worry about Linda losing Mirabelle because people like Bebe don’t win these cases. Linda has the financial means to give Mirabelle whatever she needs while Bebe doesn’t. But as the episode progresses, Bill is seeing Elena in a different lens, a vindictive lens. With Mia on the stand, he doesn’t bring up her questionable maternity issues. Elena catches his arm, and he shoos her down.

While Mia is comforting Izzy, Pearl ends up at the Richardson home with Trip. Pearl wants Trip to tell his brother Moody, played by Gavin Lewis, that they’re dating. She had met Moody first, and Moody is in love with her and trying to figure out why they’re spending less time together. As Trip searches for Moody, Pearl sits down with Elena. We see them talking through the Christmas lights in the living room, but we don’t hear the conversation. It’s not until Elena drives Pearl home is where we get the gist of the conversation: Elena told Pearl about her paternity. Pearl in tears rushes past her mother, who’s in the driveway in shock that Elena came near her child.

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what's lit

‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: The Spider Web

Gavin Lewis as Moody Richardson and Lexie Underwood as Pearl Warren in Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere.

The fourth episode of Little Fires Everywhere details the aftermath of a birthday party and the rupture of a budding relationship between two mothers and their children.

Mystery novelist Attica Locke, a producer on the Hulu series, wrote the episode based on the novel by Celeste Ng. Attica was also a TV writer on Fox’s Empire and Netflix’s When They See Us and a part of a growing cohort of women authors bringing their bookish career to the small screen.

This episode highlights the intersection between two mothers with another mother being added into the mix of drama in the real rule-abiding community of Shaker Heights. Ohio, Elena Richardson, played by Reese Witherspoon, a well-to-do white woman who’s helping her friend keep the baby she’s trying to adopt; Mia Warren, played by Kerry Washington, a single black mother with an artist daughter who spends time with Elena’s kids; and Bebe Chow, played by Lu Huang, is a Chinese immigrant who works with Mia at a Chinese restaurant and recently learned that the baby she’s been looking for is the same baby being adopting by Elena’s friend.

The motherhood angle is emphasized in a turning point scene in Bebe’s apartment where Elena, who used her investigative journalism skills from her part-time job to find the address, shows up to offer Bebe money. Not knowing Elena’s intentions, Bebe invites Elena inside and gives her a hot cup of tea. Elena explains that she represents the McCulloughs, the family who will adopt a baby they named Mirabelle. But with Mia’s assistance, Bebe discovers Mirabelle is May Ling, the baby she abandoned at a Cleveland fire station due to financial hardship.

With the check in her face, Bebe asks Elena how much she would sell her kids. Upset that her offer wasn’t taken even with the threat of turning Bebe into the authorities for illegal immigration, Elena leaves the apartment with the check on the table.

THE DINNER TABLE

At the end of the episode, after Elena and Mia blow up in the Richardson kitchen over Mia lying about her role in Bebe finding out about Mirabelle/May Ling’s whereabouts, both mothers told their children at their separate dinner tables that they cannot speak to each other anymore.

Pearl is upset at her mother, whom she believes never trusted the Richardsons or took the chance to get to know them. She heads to her bedroom but doesn’t stay there. Within minutes, she’s being welcomed by Elena at the door as Elena finds Pearl clothes to sleep in.

Meanwhile, Mia is gloomily peering at a photo of herself very pregnant in a bathtub. She puts the photo back and goes to check in on Pearl. Finding an empty room, she drives to the Richardson home. The headlights in the window wake up Pearl.

SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO

The strong connection between Izzy, played by Megan Stott, and Mia brightened in this episode with them collaborating on Mia’s art project at her home. Izzy confides in Mia that her mother Elena believes she’s at a boy’s house for a study session. Because Elena is worried about Izzy’s sexuality with lesbian rumors flying around school, Izzy knows it’s a secret that she would rather do art at Mia’s house. They’re interrupted by a frantic phone call from Bebe. Mia cuts the session short to meet with Bebe and convince her to fight for her daughter.

Izzy later finds an article on Lilith Fair on her pillow. She asks Bill, her father played by Joshua Jackson, about it. He tries to explain how her mother meant well when thinking Izzy would be interested in Lilith Fair, the all-female concert tour that started in 1997 by Sarah Maclachlan. Teary-eyed, Izzy tells her father she didn’t like the gesture.

The connection is undeniable between Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood, and Elena. Pearl sees Elena and her eldest children, Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn, and Trip, played by Jordan Elsass., as the model of perfection she wants to be. Elena symbolizes stability, and since Pearl has been begging her mother for that lifestyle, she feels she can absorb it at the Richardson home.

When Mia and Elena have their spat about what it takes to be a good mother and taking the sides of their friends in the fight for Mirabelle/May Ling, Elena brings up how well-behaved Pearl is even though Mia is not a good mother because she keeps moving Pearl around from town to town, school to school.

VIRGINAL

Pearl is officially a part of the popular girl gang when she’s sitting upon Lexie’s bed with Serena Wong, played by Lisa Yamada. Plus, Lexie is bragging about her lack of breakouts due to her having sex with her boyfriend, Brian, played by Stevonte Hart.

Later, in the algebra two class Pearl fought so hard to get into, the teacher is passing out tests. Pearl did well while Trip got a D. This presents the opportunity for Trip to come over to the Warren home and study with Pearl.

On the floor. With music playing. Of course, this leads to a make-out session that Pearl suggests should move to the bedroom. Now, her virginity may be the talk of the town.

But it doesn’t happen. Even Trip has the nerve to blame Pearl for seducing him into her bed while playing with Moody’s feelings! Pearl did neglect the other Richardson brother Moody, played by Gavin Lewis, but she’s taken by surprise hearing this from Trip as he jumps into his pants.

Pearl has an awkward run-in with Moody at a Halloween party. Dressed as Scary Spice from the Spice Girls with Lexie and Serena dressed as Posh Spice, Moody comes up to Pearl and asks about the racism aspect of Pearl being the black Spice Girl. He assumes the other girls are using her as a pet project due to her race. She clarifies that she chose to dress as Scary Spice. When the other girls call her name, she excuses herself, but it shows how her friendship with Moody depreciated amid Pearl’s ascent to popularity.

LAWYER UP

As the kids are trying to figure out their social circles, the adults are trying to figure out the custody arrangements for Mirabelle/May Ling.

With Mia’s persuasion and monetary contribution, Bebe hires a lawyer to fight for May Ling. The fight quickly moves to the TV news as reporters run up to Linda McCullough, played by Rosemarie DeWitt, with Mirabelle in the baby carriage. Linda running into her home along with interviews with Bebe and the lawyer swearing they will fight for custody lights up the TVs in all of the families’ living rooms.

When Bebe says in the report she was offered $10,000, Izzy asks in shock why the McCulloughs would offer that sum. But Bill looks at Elena, sensing she is responsible for the offer.

BURN HER UP

At the very end, Mia is cutting up strips of a photo she blew up. She hangs up the shreds on a rope. Mia puts a lighter to each shred and watches them burn. As she stands back, it turns out to be an image of Elena.

Little Fires Everywhere is streaming now on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on Wednesdays.

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Samantha Irby Shares How She Went From Author to TV Writer

Comedic essayist and blogger Samantha Irby wrote a lengthy article about how she was tapped to be a part of a TV show perfectly made for her.

Samantha, the author of the best-selling essay collections We Are Never Meeting In Real Life, Meaty and Wow, No Thank You, is a writer on Hulu’s Shrill, starring Saturday Night Live‘s Aidy Bryant based on a novel by Lindy West.

Shrill follows Aidy’s character, Annie, as she navigates her mid-20s as a low-paid journalist with a slacker boyfriend, aging parents, and a supportive friend circle in Portland. Except Annie is a plus-size woman who realizes she can be comfortable with her body and get whatever she desires.

In a recent Guardian article titled “I had zero experience in a writers’ room. Then I was offered my dream job in LA,” Samantha describes how Lindy invited her to be a part of the Los Angeles writers’ team for Shrill, the TV show. With her characteristically claustrophobic writing style with packing as many words as she can into a sentence, Samantha expressed how she dealt with her imposter syndrome.

After the first week, I waited for someone to show up and tell me, “OK, hoe, it’s cute that you thought we were just gonna let you sit in a chair and get paid to think about imaginary people. Here’s your scrub brush, you remember where the toilets are, right?” And… I would do it. I would scrub those toilets.

Within her two months on staff, she said she warmed up to LA by watching celebrities, collecting crystals, and eating a lot of tacos.

She also discusses one of the biggest moments on the TV series during the first season where Annie fights to cover a story on a body-positive pool party for women in the “Pool” episode. She goes to the Fat Babe Pool Party, fully clothed, unbelieving how the women are comfortable in their swimsuits. Then she takes in the energy around her and jumps into the pool.

Aidy Bryant as Annie Easton in Shrill

The popular episode saw plagiarism claims by Virgie Tovar, the author of the 2018 body-positive manifesto You Have the Right to Remain Fat. Virgie argued Shrill lifted the scene from her book and her TEDx talk. Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want To Talk About Race and Samantha’s friend, defended the scene she said is verified as being taped the same time Virgie’s book was made available, making the scene coincidental.

Samantha, who wrote the episode, talks about how she came up with the idea of the pool party and placing Annie in the midst of the uplifting event.

“In Chicago, I would go to dance parties, and clothing swaps, and exercise classes that were made specifically for fat women,” Samantha wrote in the Guardian article. “I thought it would be cool to see Annie seeing all different types of bodies unabashedly enjoying decadent party snacks while wearing crop tops and bikinis poolside.”

Samantha and Lindy, who both started their writing careers on blogs, are among a growing list of authors who have segued their acclaimed literary careers into the world of TV. Another example are Celeste Ng and Attica Locke, who are two of the producers behind Hulu’s new series Little Fires Everywhere, based on Celeste’s top-rated 2017 novel.

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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Seventy Cents

Reese Witherspoon as Elena Richardson

Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu has already set the groundwork for showing the relationships between three mothers—all of different races—and how their circumstances in 1990s suburbia will impact their lives forever.

The show stars Reese Witherspoon as Elena Richardson, a white housewife/journalist raising four teen kids—Lexie, Tripp, Moody and Izzy; and Kerry Washington, a black single mother raising her teen daughter Pearl. The third mother who was just brought into the mix is Bebe Chow, played by Lu Huang, a recent Chinese immigrant who works with Mia as a waitress and is looking for the daughter she gave up. They all live in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a real community outside Cleveland that historically created its own rules for a utopian suburbia vibe.

While the kids are preparing for the homecoming dance, the same night the adults are preparing for a one-year-old birthday party hosted by Elena. These two events will define the storyline with both ending in disaster.

The Mixed Question

After the kids decide to go to homecoming, Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood, jumps at a chance to go shopping with Lexie, the eldest Richardson daughter played by Jade Pettyjohn. Lexie just plagiarized Pearl’s essay to get placement in a math class for her Yale college application. Pearl comes out of a dressing room in a dress she loves. That’s when Lexie tells her about seeing the essay, but she conveniently leaves out the plagiarism part and calls the essay more of an inspiration when for her essay.

Lexie further distracts Pearl from the truth after asking about her lineage: “Are you mixed?” Going on about how pretty Pearl is, Lexie continues with asking who Pearl’s father is because he must have some non-black blood. This loaded question can be seen as offensive with emphasizing Pearl’s racial identity and asking her paternity, but mostly it’s about race and what society calls beauty. Lexie purports herself as an expert in race with having a black boyfriend, Brian, played by Stevonte Hart. How black her boyfriend is already came up in the first episode.

The biggest distraction of all: Lexie buys Pearl her homecoming dress.

“You’re letting some rich spoiled white girl turn you into her dress-up doll!” Mia screams at Pearl after discovering the new dress. “She doesn’t own you. You don’t belong to Lexie Richardson.”

Pearl then verbally hits her mother back by asking about her father and his whereabouts. Mia can’t give a clear answer. Again, Pearl is frustrated by her vagabond life, now realizing other kids didn’t live like her.

In the book, Lexie is talking to her best friend Serena Wong, who hasn’t been introduced formally on the show yet, and calling the new friend of her brother Moody, played by Gavin Lewis, “Little Orphan Pearl.”

You’re letting some rich spoiled white girl turn you into her dress-up doll! She doesn’t own you. You don’t belong to Lexie Richardson.

“She’s so quiet,” Lexie tells Serena at the top of chapter five. “Like she’s afraid to speak. And when you look at her, she turns bright red—red-red, like a tomato. A literal tomato.”

The book goes on about Lexie’s new fascination on Pearl, who is showing her desire to hang out with the older Richardson siblings, Lexie and Tripp, played by Jordan Elsass, who have ascended into high school popularity. The quote also emphasizes how Mia and Pearl are not black in the book with Lexie’s reddening description of Pearl.

The Black Boyfriend

Brian, Lexie’s boyfriend, comes to dinner at the Richardson house where he’s pushed to meet Pearl. Elena bluntly talks about what Pearl and Brian have in common, which is code for both being black. Pearl doesn’t seem interested in getting to know Brian due to that remark, but Brian tries to be friendly.

When Brian discovers Lexie adapted most of Pearl’s essay to her own for college, he doesn’t know how to feel about his longtime girlfriend even when they’re crowned homecoming king and queen. Brian dislikes how Lexie took a story from a black girl’s perspective and badly adapted it to her own perspective, which raises ethical questions for him.

At the dance, Brian tells Pearl about the essay. In the distance, Lexie knows they’re talking about her.

COMMON GROUND

After much despise that Izzy, played by Megan Stott, is not her clone, Elena softens in episode two. The turning point is finding out from Tripp that kids at school have been calling Izzy “Ellen” as in Ellen DeGeneres assuming she’s gay.

The next morning Elena tells Izzy of an embarrassing high school moment. This inspires Izzy to ask her siblings and friends to go to homecoming. Scenes later, while modeling in her emerald dress in the driveway, Mia exclaims that Izzy’s leg is bleeding. A shaving mishap. Elena takes Izzy and shaves Izzy’s legs with care over the bathtub.

The pendulum swings back to normal when Elena discovers from the mother of Izzy’s ex-friend that Izzy allegedly violated the friend. Though Elena runs to her husband Bill, played by Joshua Jackson, the truth will come out in the next episode as the party rapidly goes downward.

whose baby is it?

The episode opens with Bebe months before when she had a hard time taking care of her newborn, May Ling. With the hardship of no power in her bare-bones apartment, Bebe tries to buy formula for May Ling, but she’s seventy cents short, hence the episode’s title. The cashier screams at her to get out of the store. It’s the last straw as Bebe soon leaves May Ling outside a fire station for a safe surrender.

The story obviously touches Mia. With Bebe broken over the baby and also unable to speak fluent English, Mia vows to find out what happened to May Ling.

Elena’s friend, Linda McCullough played by Rosemarie DeWitt, has been introduced in the previous two episodes for a short period of time. It turns out Linda adopted a baby, Mirabelle, and Elena is throwing a birthday party for the one-year-old.

Earlier, Elena tells Mia, the home manager, about the baby shower and Linda’s adoption journey—how Linda and her husband adopted Mirabelle, who is Chinese, after she was abandoned at a fire station.

With this new information, Mia tells Bebe she may have found May Ling,  newly named Mirabelle McCullough. Bebe wants to go to the McCullough house immediately, but Mia calms her and says it’s easier if she goes to see if it’s May Ling first. The identifying factor: a red spot on May Ling’s scalp.

Strapped with more information, Mia offers her photography services for the birthday party at the Richardson home. At the party, Mia is choosy about taking photos until she sneaks upstairs to the sleeping baby. She wakes up Mirabelle and tries to find the red spot. She finds it, but Elena comes in. The baby is handed over as Mia slips away.

The episode, and the party, ends with the earsplitting scream of Bebe, who appears at the party and sees her daughter cradled in the arms of a white family.

Bebe’s baby, May Ling by her supporters and Mirabelle by the McCullough supporters, will be a central point in the story, dividing not only the Richardsons and Warrens in the process but the idyllic community of Shaker Heights.

The first three episodes of Little Fires Everywhere is streaming now on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on Wednesdays.

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‘Little Fires Everywhere’ TV Review: Seeds and All

Kerry Washington as Mia Warren and Lu Huang as Bebe Chow in Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu.

The second episode of Little Fires Everywhere deepens the shaky acquaintanceship of two matriarchs trying to accept their newfound ties.

Kerry Washington is Mia Warren, a single black mother who moves to rule-abiding Shaker Heights, Ohio with her daughter Pearl, played by Lexi Underwood. Reese Witherspoon is Elena Richardson, a rich white mother with four teenage children distraught over how her youngest daughter, Izzy, played by Megan Stott, is not aspiring to be the American dream she set up for her family.

As Pearl hangs out more with the Richardson children—Izzy; Lexie, played by Jade Pettyjohn; Tripp, played by Jordan Elsass; and Moody, played by Gavin Lewis—Mia and Elena are seeing their lives collide more, whether they like it or not.

DOING THE MATH

Pearl wants to take algebra two, but the white male school counselor placed her back in geometry. The counselor claims Pearl attended too many schools and assumes she’s being bused in from Cleveland. Knowing her race is really the decision, she later tells Mia about the situation at the Chinese restaurant where her mother works. But Mia is watching her coworker, Bebe, deal with the diners, especially a baby.

Pearl picks up on the disinterest and asks Elena the next morning if she could proofread her essay to get into algebra two. Elena gladly accepts and mentions the school doesn’t like to put the students of color in the higher-level classes. In the kitchen, Elena puts the essay down on the counter to fetch Izzy for school. Lexie sees the abandoned papers and takes a peek.

BOOK CLUB

Elena’s book club is reading The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, which of course riles her conservatism as she complains she had voted for Arthur Golden’s classic Memoirs of a Geisha instead. At the book club inside her spacious living room, Elena touches on motherhood not being mentioned as much in the famous feminist play.

The moderator shoots back about the last chapter revolving around childbirth and asks if she’s less of a woman for not having children. Pouring liqueur in the background, Mia wanders into the conversation to defend Elena, who barely read the play distraught over the mention of “vaginas,” and discusses the buried motherhood theme. Elena approves Mia’s defense and introduces Mia to the book club.

After the book club, Mia and Elena are bonding on the sofa with wine. The invisible competition comes up again when Elena absentmindedly tells Mia that she helped Pearl with her letter to advocate for her upgraded math class. Mia abruptly ends the bonding session. At home, she asks Pearl about how she got into the class. Pearl said she stood up for herself without mentioning any help from Elena.

WHO IS BEBE?

Back at the restaurant where Pearl is talking to Mia about her math dilemma, Mia zeros in on Bebe Chow, the quiet Chinese immigrant working at the restaurant played by Lu Huang. Mia senses Bebe needs help after Bebe shows happiness then sadness when handling a baby for a family, so Mia gets up from the dining table on her night off and tells Bebe she will take over her shift.

Later, Bebe makes homemade noodles for Mia that she brings to Mia at home. Mia gives Bebe her tips from the night before. Her kindness touches Bebe, who admits she lost her baby daughter.

Mia tells Bebe she doesn’t have to share her story to explain her behavior; she understands as a mother. This signals another mother being brought into the equation and how her race will play a role in discovering what happened to her daughter.

still, Who is Mia?

The episode opens in a years-old flashback of Mia having sex in a cramped car. She’s only distracted by baby Pearl waking up. She kicks out her sex partner and comforts Pearl.

This accompanies the New York City subway flashbacks that Mia has been having since the first episode. She’s scared sitting on the subway and the main person she’s staring at across from her in the car is Grey’s Anatomy actor/activist Jesse Williams. At one point, his unidentified character flickers into Elena. Mia’s traumas may take a backseat to Bebe’s traumas we have yet to see.

The first three episodes of Little Fires Everywhere is streaming now on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on Wednesdays.