Recommended by: James McBride

“A lucid and magnificent debut that destroys the myth of the ‘tragic mulatto.’  This isn’t a story about race.  This is a story about the heroes and villains, gladiators and misfits, who live, flourish, suffer, and die behind the walls of America’s racial divide.”

Author Biography

Born in 1970, Danzy Senna grew up in Boston where her parents, who are both writers, were active in the Civil Rights Movement.  After graduating from Stanford, she received her MFA in creative writing from UC-Irvine.  Senna has worked as a journalist for several major magazines, and her critical writings on race and gender have been anthologized.  Caucasia is her first novel.  She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Topics to Consider

Cole and Birdie are the obvious products of their parents’ union. Cole offers her father proof that his blackness hasn’t been blanched while Birdie’s existence challenges this for him.  How does he ultimately fail  to be a father to his “white” child?  In doing so, does he fail his “black” child as well?

Discuss Birdie’s fascination with Samantha.  Does this fascination trigger the events which eventually guide her back to Cole?  If so, how?

“Elemeno” is the private language that Birdie and Cole use to communicate with one another.  What purpose does this language serve?  What does it offer each of them?

Did changing names from Birdie to Jesse change her persona as well?  In what ways?  If you were to adopt a new name, what would it be?

Birdie travels with a box of “negrobilia.”  What is the power of this collection of objects and what does it mean to her?  When does Jesse begin to add to it?  Why?  Were you ever a collector?  What did being a collector mean to you?

In what sense is Jesse a creation of her mother’s?  Draw comparisons between Exu-Elegba (the South American trickster god who represents potentiality and change) and Jesse.

Why is it important to Sandy/Sheila to be wanted by the FBI?  How does this become the driving force in her life ?  What would it do to her definition of self if she were to discover that she was not being hunted?

Why must Birdie/Jesse ultimately separate from her mother and reunite with her aunt, her father and finally, Cole?

1. Caucasia begins with Birdie's recollection: "A long time ago I disappeared. One day I was here, the next I was gone." Why does Birdie come to think of herself as having "disappeared" when living as Jesse Goldman? Is her ability to disappear a blessing or a curse? Is Birdie "passing" when she calls herself black, or when she calls herself white? When is she not passing?

2. Cole and Birdie speak Elemeno, a language named after their favorite letters in the alphabet, "with no verb tenses, no pronouns, just words floating outside time and space, without owner or direction" (p. 6). How does Elemeno reflect the sisters' positions in their family and in the world? Why does Elemeno continue to be so important to Birdie throughout the novel?

3. In what ways is the tension between Sandy and Cole typical of that between any mother and daughter, and in what ways is it specific to an interracial family? Do you agree with Cole's statement: "Mum doesn't know anything about raising a black child" (p. 44)? Does Sandy treat her two daughters differently based on their appearances?

4. Why do you think Deck treats Birdie with a "cheerful disinterest-never hostility or ill will, but with a kind of impatient amusement" (p. 47)? Do you think he loves Birdie? How do Birdie and Cole respond differently to Deck's teachings on race? Who internalizes his vision of America more? By the end of the novel, have Cole and Birdie embraced or rejected their parents' philosophies about the world? Which sister seems to have become more like Deck, and which more like Sandy?

5. Officially, Birdie has no name. Her birth certificate "still reads 'Baby Lee,' like the gravestone of some stillborn child" (p. 17). Her sister's name, meanwhile, was originally Colette after the French novelist, but was later shortened to Cole. Discuss the significance of the sisters' names.

6. Sandy and Deck are initially drawn together by a quote by the French existentialist writer, Camus, who wrote: "Do you drink coffee at night?" What does this initial encounter tell you about their compatibility, or incompatibility? Why does their relationship eventually sour? Do you believe they were torn apart because of external pressures, or internal ones? Do you think they would have stayed together had they lived in a less racially divided city or in another country altogether? By the end of the novel, does Birdie believe that her parents really loved each other? Do you believe that they did?

7. Birdie refers to the time she spends on the run with Sandy, while "the lie of our false identities seemed irrelevant" (p. 116), as "dreamlike." Despite a sense of loneliness, Birdie says she felt "comfort in that state of incompletion" (p. 116). Do you feel that this experience weighed more positively or negatively in Birdie's development? By the end of the novel, has she found "completion"-or will she continue to live in this state of incompletion?

8. How did Sandy and Birdie's stay at Aurora affect Birdie's emerging sexual identity? How do her sexual experiences with Alexis compare to her later sexual experiences with Nicholas in New Hampshire? Does Birdie's emerging sexuality in any way parallel her search for racial identity?

9. Redbone lurks in the background of the novel as a sinister figure. Why does he initially take such an interest in Birdie? Why does he take her photograph in the playground? Do you believe he is in part responsible for the troubles that befall the family? Ultimately, who or what do you feel is to blame for Cole and Birdie's separation?

10. Birdie often seeks her reflection in other women's faces. What parts of herself does she see mirrored in Cole? Sandy? Maria? Samantha? Dot? Penelope? Mona? Others? What are the potential advantages and disadvantages to being a chameleon?

11. Birdie holds on to a fantasy of helping Deck's research by spying on white people while "passing." How does she fail or succeed in her study? What does she find out? Does she become Jesse Goldman, or is she able to remain Birdie in disguise? Are her fantasies about Deck shattered or fulfilled when she encounters him at the novel's conclusion?

12. At some point in New Hampshire, Birdie starts to add items to her box of "negrobilia." Discuss the significance of the various "artifacts" Birdie keeps in her box. Do they succeed in helping her remember Cole and Deck?

13. In the woods one night in New Hampshire, Samantha says to Birdie: " 'I'm black. Like you' " (p. 242). Do you think Samantha has been aware of Birdie's racial heritage all along, or is Birdie mishearing her? What or who gives Birdie the courage to finally leave New Hampshire?

14. Birdie sees her mother as "a long-lost daughter of Mayflower histories, forever in motion, running from or toward an utterable hideaway" (p. 286). In your opinion, is Sandy more "a hero, a madwoman, or a fool" (p. 332)? What motivated her to take up a life of political activism? What has she sacrificed in the process?

15. Do you agree with Deck that race is "a complete illusion... a costume" (p. 334)? Does Birdie and Cole's experience prove that racial identity is simply a costume, or something deeper?

16. In the novel's conclusion, Birdie says to her sister: " 'They say you don't have to choose. But... there are consequences if you don't.'" Cole replies: " 'Yeah, and there are consequences if you do.'" What are the consequences of choosing and not choosing? Have Birdie and Cole chosen one part of their racial heritage over the other by the novel's conclusion?

17. Birdie writes, "While there seemed to be remnants of my mother's family everywhere-history books, PBS specials, plaques in Harvard Square-my father's family was a mystery. It was as if my father and Dot had arisen out of thin air." Does her mother's white family's written history shape her identity more than her black imagined one? How does knowing or not knowing one's history contribute to one's sense of identity? Does what we learn about ourselves through oral or written histories give us a different understanding of ourselves?

18. Do you agree with Deck's theory about mulattos in America functioning as canaries in the coal mine? Is Birdie a canary in the coal mine? What do you imagine her fate will be?

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