In Resurrecting Mingus, Adams writes in a style that bends the boundary between popular and literary fiction – a very readable, fluid narrative that switches point of view between Mingus (the main character), her mother Ellie, and her father Carl. Mingus is a lawyer stuck between her divorcing parents and her jealousy-prone sister, Eva. While being challenged to chose her loyalty to one parent or the other, Mingus finds herself enveloped in a relationship with a new man who makes her question her own beliefs about love, and about her biracial identity. Here’s some “mixed” quotes:
- “Sometimes Mingus used to think there should have been a special dining cage in resturants for biracial families. …As they ate, people could gawk and turn their chairs to get a better view” (30).
- (Mother’s point of view) “Curly haired combinations of me and Carl. i used to want to take them home ot my father and let him see how wrong he was. Let him seethat white and black did mix, perfectly, into two little girls” (156).
- “Mingus had always felt more black than white. But there was something about what Eric said that unnerved her. Like he was denying that a part of her existed. That same part that she had denied many times herself” (159).
Mixed Reader 