Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

“Every time Z asked me a question, I would remember all the times I had asked similar questions growing up. All the things I’d been told. All the things that still didn’t make sense” (14). Mira wrote her memoir Good Talk on difficult conversations that she has had with important people in her life. She features conversations with her son Z, her husband Jed, and her extended family, friends, coworkers, dates, and strangers. Through the depiction of these conversations, Mira develops a motif about the importance of conversation in not only relationships but in the development of the self and the way a person grows to view the world. Because Mira chose to write a graphic novel rather than traditional novel, the dialogue serves an extra significant purpose in conveying characterization, emotion, tone, and plot.

The memoir opens as Mira’s six-year-old son Z, becomes obsessed with Michael Jackson. He begins asking questions Mira did not expect him to ask for a few more years, such as, “Are you going to turn white?” (6) and “What did Michael Jackson like being better, brown or white?” (12).