A graphic memoir that grapples with tough conversations about family, race, love and identity – and the ways they change us

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, TIME, BUZZFEED, ESQUIRE, LIBRARY JOURNAL AND KIRKUS REVIEWS LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/OPEN BOOK AWARD ‘Hilarious and heart-rending’ Celeste Ng ‘Heartbreaking, but also infused with levity and humour. What stands out most is the fierce compassion with which she parses the complexities of family and love’ Time How brown is too brown? Can Indians be racist? What does real love between really different people look like? Like many six-year-olds, Mira Jacob’s half-Jewish, half-Indian son, Z, has questions about everything – and as tensions from the 2016 election spread from the media into his own family, they become much, much more complicated. Trying to answer him honestly, Mira has to think back to where she’s gotten her own answers. Written with humor and vulnerability, this deeply relatable graphic memoir is a love letter to the art of conversation – and to the hope that hovers in our most difficult questions. ‘Helps us think with grace and disarming wit … Reading these searching, often hilarious tête-à-têtes is as effortless as eavesdropping on a crosstown bus … Magic’ New York Times Book Review ‘Vibrant, inventive and vulnerable … Good Talk attempts to answer, with humour and heart, some of the most difficult questions of all’ Bustle ‘Moving and very funny’ Esquire

"A masterful mix of pictures and words to speak on life’s most uncomfortable conversations" - io9

"Searching, often hilarious … [T]he medium is part of the magic of Good Talk. The old comic-book alchemy of words and pictures opens up new possibilities of feeling" - New York Times Book Review

"[A] moving and very funny graphic novel that explores identity, race, sexuality and love" - Esquire

"[A] breezy but poignant graphic memoir that takes on racism, love and the election of President Trump ... The collage effect creates an odd, immediate intimacy ... The ‘talks’ Jacob relates are painful, often hilarious, and sometimes absurd, but her memoir makes a fierce case for continuing to have them" - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Jacob’s earnest recollections are often heartbreaking, but also infused with levity and humor. What stands out the most is the fierce compassion with which she parses the complexities of family and love. Jacob finds hope in the answers that come from asking hard questions" - Time Magazine

"Insightful … Good Talk’s visuals are simple but powerful, offering a witty and empathetic window into how to talk about – and live in – life’s complexities" - Entertainment Weekly