It's really hard to feel like you're writing, like the thing that you're used to being your saving mechanism is actually a trap.

Like even in trying to construct the right sentences, I felt like I was laying a trap in which I was going to be exposed as being hopeful about a conversation that other people were just going to bring their cynicism and their

dismissal to. And it's so infuriating to have to have that happen in tandem with seeing people who

look like you being killed and detained and arrested and beaten. It's just sort of like,

why would I do this work again?

And something about drawing us and just writing the conversation got me out of that position.

I'm Jocelyn K. Gly, and this is Hurry Slowly, a podcast about pacing yourself where I explore how you can find

more calm, comfort, and clarity through the simple act of slowing down. Today we're talking about

conversations, the good, the bad, the ugly, and most importantly, the uncomfortable.

We all have unfinished conversations that haunt us.

And my guest today, the writer Mira Jacob, had the genius idea to take all of her awkward,

unfinished, anxiety-inducing conversations, and collect them into a book.

Her stunning graphic memoir, Good Talk, which was far and away my favorite book of 2019.

It's a thought-provoking, funny, heartbreaking, and yet still surprisingly breezy read,

everything you want in a good book.

Mira is an Indian American woman who is raised in New Mexico and now lives in Brooklyn

with her white Jewish husband and her young son.

The book begins with a series of innocent questions from her son as he grapples with what it means to grow up as a mixed-race child in America.

What unfolds from there is a profound meditation on race, as Mirre presents a series of conversations from her past.

What it was like growing up brown in a predominantly white part of America, her fraught relationship

with her relatives in India, and the challenges of dealing with a set of in-laws who support

Donald Trump. Using a deceptively simple graphic style, Good Talk addresses complex issues

...