I only read TKAM a few years ago, which means I had experiences a lot of its cultural echoes before the actual thing. Most importantly, the TV show I'll Fly Away. In case you haven't seen it, it's the story of a black housekeeper working for a white family during the Civil Rights era. The father in the family is a lawyer, and the whole thing is clearly inspired by TKAM - but told from the perspective of a black woman, and where the white characters, no matter how kind, all express a certain clueless racism. So for me, reading TKAM after that gave a sense of "...wow, there aren't a whole lot of black people talking in this story about racism."
Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book, because I did, but it does mean that your description of this new book feels, to me personally, more like the pieces of the puzzles sliding back in order. :-)
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I only read TKAM a few years ago, which means I had experiences a lot of its cultural echoes before the actual thing. Most importantly, the TV show I'll Fly Away. In case you haven't seen it, it's the story of a black housekeeper working for a white family during the Civil Rights era. The father in the family is a lawyer, and the whole thing is clearly inspired by TKAM - but told from the perspective of a black woman, and where the white characters, no matter how kind, all express a certain clueless racism. So for me, reading TKAM after that gave a sense of "...wow, there aren't a whole lot of black people talking in this story about racism."
Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the book, because I did, but it does mean that your description of this new book feels, to me personally, more like the pieces of the puzzles sliding back in order. :-)