The Color of Water (Part 1)

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother is significantly different from Stephen King's On Writing. Whereas King's On Writing focuses on the process and technicalities of writing, The Color of Water is an autobiography. James McBride, the author, writes this book as a tribute to his mother, Ruth. The novel parallels between the story of the author's mother's young adulthood with the story of his own young adulthood, manipulating time so that the reader can compare Ruth and James at similar ages.

The book opens with James's mother describing her early life. Ruth was born into a Polish Orthodox Jewish family with firm religious beliefs. Ruth explains to the reader that she has become "dead" to her family as a result of her decision to marry Andrew McBride, James's African-American father. She states, "My family morned me when I married your father. They said kaddish and sat shiva. That's how Orthodox Jews mourn their dead..." Ruth then describes her parents as polar opposites. Her father, an Orthodox rabbi, was as "hard as a rock", whereas her mother was "gentle and meek".

The next chapter switches views as James tells his story. James begins his story describing his mother's two new hobbies: riding the bicycle and playing the piano. James particularly focuses on his mother's love for riding her worn out, blue bicycle around the neighborhood. Her care free mood as she rode up and down the neighborhood street was an enigma to James; he couldn't figure out why his middle-aged mother was doing such an activity in the middle of the day. He believed that it was her way of grieving after her second husband died. However, I think that her bicycle has more significance than just a way to part ways from grievance. I think that her bicycle shows her constant need for movement. From the day James's mother was born, she was always on the move. After migrating to America in her early childhood, her father's job of a traveling preacher made her family move often. Ruth describes, "Tateh (her father) would sign a contract with a synagogue and after a year the synagogue wouldn't renew it, so we'd pack up and move to the next town." Her family moved everywhere from Glens Fall, New York to Suffolk, Virginia. Therefore, these constant moves became instilled in her, and the bicycle symbolizes her need to be constantly moving.

The next seven chapters continue to transition between James's childhood and his mother's. Each chapter hits a major point such as religion and racism. Also, I have to admit, this transition becomes rather confusing. Every time I start a new chapter, I have to remind myself that the chapters in italics is Ruth's while the other font is James's. However, with every page turn, I learn something new about James and his mother's lives. Even from the first nine chapters of this book, both James and his mother have endured more than many people have endured in a lifetime. I look forward to what the rest of the book has in store for me!