Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
HarperCollins
Otago Daily Times, March 20th 2022
Jenny Murphy and Leroya–Riley–Wilson have been best friends for their entire lives.The fact that Jen is white and Riley is Black has never been an issue between them, and in many ways, Jen is closer to Riley’s family than her own. Their lives may have diverged over the last 14 years, with Riley leaving Philidelphia to study and work while Jen has remained behind, marrying a police officer and becoming part of the closed circle of law-enforcement spouses, but they have continued to support one another from a distance. Now Riley has moved back to the city to work at the local TV station KXY while Jen is 7 months pregnant (thanks to a loan from Riley for a last-ditch round of IVF), and they are both looking forward to a joyful reunion. But things fall apart on the very first evening together when Jen’s husband, Kevin, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed African American boy, Justin Dwyer. As the only black beat reporter at KXY, Riley is given the lead on the story and, keenly aware that Justin could just as easily have been her own brother, focuses on the grieving family.
Jen, meanwhile, is forced out of her home by the media attention and threats of violence and watches helplessly as her husband is consumed by remorse and his fellow officers – including those in his own family – pressure him to deny responsibility. She cannot understand why Riley refuses to give Kevin’s side of the story, while Riley is equally amazed that Jen can’t see how inappropriate it is even to ask. This mutual breach of faith leaves both women facing significant challenges alone, separated by the one thing that they have never discussed: their race.
What stands out most about this retelling of a sadly familiar story is that it arises from the collaboration between a black and a white author, one that recognises the solution is not colour blindness but being willing to see and be seen. Not only does this lend distinctiveness and veracity to both voices at a time when issues of cultural appropriation and self/other-representation are being critically evaluated, it invites the reader to share in a dialogue between the writers themselves. As such, it is often uncomfortable reading: It is all too easy to see myself in Jen’s place responding to accusations of racism with the unthinking assertion, ‘My best friend is black’, and I actually winced when Riley described having to constantly bear the burden of ‘white peoples’ guilt’. The blame is not one way, however, and Riley eventually accepts that her unwillingness to trust Jen fully has contributed to the division between them. Fearing that talking will make things worse rather than better, she has never told Jen how racism shapes every aspect of her existence lest her friend dismisses or disappoints her by failing to understand.
Although the conflicted relationship between Riley and Jen centres the novel, We Are Not Like Them has so much to say about cultural and institutional injustice that it threatens to collapse under the weight of its own talking points. Yet the very fact that such a book is necessary (resonates far beyond American shores) highlights just how easy it is for the privileged to tune out the voices of the vulnerable. As such, it is only fitting that the last word goes to Justin’s mother: “On a good day…she lets herself believe that people will do the right thing…[t]oday though, as another mother grieves, is not one of those days”.
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