Winner of the 2020 Midwest Book Award in Autobiography/Memoir, The
Color of Love is an unforgettable memoir about a mixed-race Jewish
woman who, after fifteen years of estrangement from her racist
great-aunt, helps bring her home when Alzheimer's strikes.
In 1970, three-day-old Marra B. Gad was adopted by a white Jewish family
in Chicago. For her parents, it was love at first sight--but they
quickly realized the world wasn't ready for a family like theirs.
Marra's biological mother was unwed, white, and Jewish, and her
biological father was black. While still a child, Marra came to realize
that she was "a mixed-race, Jewish unicorn." In black spaces, she was
not "black enough" or told that it was OK to be Christian or Muslim, but
not Jewish. In Jewish spaces, she was mistaken for the help, asked to
leave, or worse. Even in her own extended family, racism bubbled to the
surface.
Marra's family cut out those relatives who could not tolerate the color
of her skin--including her once beloved, glamorous, worldly Great-Aunt
Nette. After they had been estranged for fifteen years, Marra discovers
that Nette has Alzheimer's, and that only she is in a position to get
Nette back to the only family she has left. Instead of revenge, Marra
chooses love, and watches as the disease erases her aunt's racism,
making space for a relationship that was never possible before.
The Color of Love explores the idea of yerusha, which means
inheritance in Yiddish. At turns heart-wrenching and heartwarming, this
is a story about what you inherit from your family--identity, disease,
melanin, hate, and most powerful of all, love. With honesty, insight,
and warmth, Marra B. Gad has written an inspirational, moving chronicle
proving that when all else is stripped away, love is where we return,
and love is always our greatest inheritance.
