Caucasia

February 2, 1998
Set in 1970s Boston, this impressively assured debut avoids the usual extremes in its depiction of racial tension. As children, Birdie and her sister, Cole, create their own secret language--Elemeno--to ward off the growing tension between their black father and their white mother. Finally, Mom and Dad split up one time too many, and no amount of Al Green records, Chinese noodles and slow dancing can bring them back together. Cole, whose complexion is darker than her sister's, gets caught up in her new, black nationalist Nkrumah School in Roxbury and in her father's new life with a black girlfriend. Birdie, pale enough to be mistaken for white, stays close to Mom, mourning her estrangement from Dad and especially Cole--her mirror, protector and secret sharer. After her father and Cole move to Brazil and the feds start to investigate her mother's mysterious political activities, Birdie and her mother go underground, posing as the wife and daughter of sympathetic professor David Goldman. Senna's observations about the racial divide in America are often fierce but always complex and humane. If the story has didactic overtones, Senna's shaping of '70s detail and convincing development of her appealing protagonists more than justify its message. BOMC alternate; author tour.