Color of Water Review

The authors recreate a vivid picture of many settings throughout the memoir. A majority of the memoir takes place in the Red Hook Housing Projects in Brooklyn, New York, and in Suffolk, Virginia. The authors describe location and feeling, which allows you to feel like you are there. The authors’ descriptions help to allow you to close your eyes, and see a picture of the location.
The authors allow you to feel like you the main characters on a personal scale. James stated, “Mameh's sisters were more about money than anything else, and any hurts that popped up along the way, they just swept them under the rug. They were all trying hard to be American, you know, not knowing what to keep and what to leave behind.” The characters can be seen through colorful descriptions of the characters actions throughout the memoir. James also said,” I felt like a Tinkertoy kid building my own self out of one of those toy building sets; for as she laid her life before me, I reassembled the tableau of her words like a picture puzzle, and as I did, so my own life was rebuilt.” I like the characters, the authors’ descriptions of them allow me to see who they really are, and everything seems to be properly in place, and the way it’s supposed to be.
The memoir is told through two point-of-views, James and his mother, Ruth. James is one of 12 children, and his father died before he was born. His mother, Rachel, whom changed her name to Ruth, is a white Jewish woman, while James is an African-American boy. Ruth is one of three children, and her brother died in World War II. Ruth was disowned by her family for marrying an African-American man. Her father was a very religious man, and cheap, but paid for things that could make him money in the future, such as sewing lessons for Ruth and her sister.