There's Birdie, who takes after her mother's white, New England side of the familylight skin, straight hair. 'The visual conundrums woven through Danzy Senna's remarkable first novel cling to your memory. 'Lucid and magnificent.'James McBride, author of The Color of Water Desperate to find her sister, yet afraid of betraying her mother and herself to some unknown danger, Birdie must learn to navigate the white world and the pains of adolescence - until she is finally prepared to set off in search of her sister. Passing as the daughter and wife of a deceased Jewish professor, Birdie and her mother drive through the Northeast, eventually making their home in New Hampshire. And the next morning, in the belief that the Feds are after them, Birdie and her mother have left everything behind: their house and possessions, their friends, and - most disturbing of all - their identity. One night, through the attic windows Birdie watches her father and his girlfriend drive away with Cole - they have gone to Brazil, she will later learn, where her father hopes for a racial equality he will never have in the States. At night the sisters watch mysterious men arrive at their house with bundles shaped like rifles. Their father moves in with his black girlfriend, who won't even look at Birdie, and their mother seems to be more and more out of control, giving her life over to the movement.

For Birdie, Cole is the mirror in which she can see her own blackness. The sisters are so close that they have created a private language, yet to the outside world they can't be sisters: while Cole looks like her father's daughter, Birdie appears to be white. The extraordinary national bestseller that launched Danzy Senna’s literary career, Caucasia is a modern classic, at once a powerful coming of age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America.Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the civil rights movement in Boston in the 1970s. Haunted by the loss of her sister, she sets out a desperate search for the family that left her behind. But for Birdie, home will always be Cole. Soon Birdie and her mother are on the road as well, drifting across the country in search of a new home. One night Birdie watches her father and his new girlfriend drive away with Cole. Despite their differences, Cole is Birdie’s confidant, her protector, the mirror by which she understands herself.

The sisters are so close that they speak their own language, yet Birdie, with her light skin and straight hair, is often mistaken for white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at school.

Synopsis: Look out for Danzy Senna's latest book, New People, on sale in August!īirdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston.

Caucasia book