![]() ![]() Particularly as an African-American woman, I knew that, on the surface, that story could sound one way. It’s such a potentially risky subject - to write about your mother who is making a living through illegal means. But most importantly, I understood that she couldn’t have been who she was outside of the context of the life she found herself in. I’m sure my old background as a journalist plays a part in that. ![]() It’s a way to write, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, for me: It’s how the story comes, and that’s what fascinates me about story. She was fascinating, and I could’ve just written about her without adding that cultural context, but that’s not really who I am. It felt to me that it’d be harder to understand her outside of that. I always understood it was going to be more about more than my mother - or, to say that better, about her inner world. The argument, implicitly, is that her story reflects her place and time. You combine a biography of her with a deep foray into her Detroit community and the time period overall. ![]()
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