THE KITCHEN ISN'T WHERE YOU COOK

A young Black girl undertakes a journey of self-discovery into adolescence and adulthood in Johnson’s novel.

Spanning nearly 40 years, the narrative begins with Book 1, “I Want to Be Farrah Fawcett,” when Marisa Logan is a 9-year-old Black girl in 1978, living a comfortable middle-class life in a small, predominantly white Michigan town. Her close friends, classmates, and teachers are white, and so are Marisa’s pop-culture references (TV shows Dallasand The Brady Bunch; her collection of Archiecomics). Popular, involved socially, and excelling in school, she brushes off the experiences her parents and grandmother relate and resents reminders that she is “different.” (A supposed good friend says Farah Fawcett can’t be Marisa’s chosen TV star wannabe—she has to be “that girl from ‘Good Times’…the only pretty black girl on TV.”). The section ends with Marisa’s budding interest in her roots, her high school graduation, and a failed test of character by handsome, blond Barry, her first love. Book 2, “Fight the Power,” is a vivid narrative of Marisa’s college years—her struggle to fit in with the school’s few Black students, meeting future husband Kyle, and finding her voice as a Black woman in fervid activism. With gut-wrenching eloquence, the author depicts Marisa’s slow awakening to subtle and overt racial injustice when a white police officer stops Kyle for a bogus speeding offense. Marisa is dismayed that her strong fiancé, trembling with anger, refuses to argue as the officer draws out his humiliation. Book 3, “Faith the size of a mustard seed,” concerns the bitter betrayal of the not-guilty verdict in the police beating of Rodney King and the further testing of Marisa’s faith and “view of white people” in the aftermath of “the Trayvon Martin murder, the Eric Garner murder, and the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri,” giving heightened resonance to Marisa’s moving, full-circle moment at her father’s testimonial as she comes to terms with who she used to be.

A poignant coming-of-age story about a Black woman’s struggle to be her authentic self.