Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? audiobook

Elegant collection of stories. Fascinating to read fiction from a black woman about blackness in the early 1960s. There is a real edge, a slyness to many of the stories. And there is always a moment in each story where you realize the work Collins is doing beneath the skin of the story. The title story, in particular, is a masterpiece.

I am not very good at reading short stories. I personally like reading long stories.But I really enjoyed these stories. They show what happens behind closed doors.They show you need courage to LiveThey show you need courage to loveThey show you need courage to stand up for what you believe in.They show no matter what colour we are, We need love, support and acceptance.I liked the first story 'Interiors' I read it out to my Husband and he said it was poetical.Just Beautiful.

Absolute must readGreat commentary on black love, colorism and interracial dating in the 1960s. A solid collection of stories, my favorite being Stepping Back.

There is a rebellious undertone in Collins’ work threading itself through each story. From the daughter who commits the “unforgivable sin of (“Negro”) girlhood” by cutting her hair and therefore turning herself into “any other Negro,” to the man who takes his own life, to the black middle-class girl from New Jersey agrees to marry her white lover in 1963 as they both naively confront the south and racial segregation, Collins presents unconventional resolutions that are not tidy, but instead a form of rebellion from what each of these characters are expected to be from the outside looking in. Each character is trying to find themselves and it’s a journey that requires the painful task of rejecting the external labels which have been arbitrarily placed on them from white-supremacy ideas of blackness to their own black bourgeois community’s. In these rebellious internal resolutions Collins is calling for a deep introspection of us all. Her work reminds us that we are humans first and our journeys toward seeking higher levels of emotional and intellectual awareness begin with our individual selves first.Read more at: https://literarylovinlady.wordpress.c...

I loved it. The stories were written in the 70s and 80s but feel fresh, delicate, light-footed. The stories tell the emotional truth but they tell it slant. Collins' background as a filmmaker is evident; stories are told in monologues and sketches of a director setting up a scene. The stories are cinematic; the emotions are deep but its essence distilled into a character or a moment. It's like a camera utilising time jumps and moving through space, fluidly going back and forth between time, the past existing alongside the present. The past not as a separate world, but very much alive in the present. The stories are short but contain a world of depth about racism and the inner lives of black women. And the humour is sly and delicious.Full review appears here.

i need to reread this sometime when i am not crunching all 175 pages in the span of a few days for class because every short story in this collection deserves more focus than i'm able to give it rn. that said, my favorite atm are "only once," "when love withers all of life cries," and "broken spirit"

Born in 1942, Kathleen Collins was a groundbreaking filmmaker, artist, and writer - part of the generation of African Americans, many of whom who were "the firsts" in their fields. Her 1982 film Losing Ground was the first feature-length dramatic film directed by an African American woman. When she died from cancer in 1988, she left most of her documents and other works to her daughter, Nina. After years of pouring over this massive cache, Nina began working to get many of the pieces either reissued, published, or otherwise sent out into the world. One example of this effort is the short story collection WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERRACIAL LOVE.The collection is composed of 16 stories of varying lengths, from as short as 4 pages to as long as 26 pages. In the story When All Love Withers All of Life Cries, the narrator of the story comments that, "the words are only icing; you keep going past the words you got nothing but surprises" (pg. 98), and this quote accurately sums up my feelings about all of the stories. I found that, no matter the length of the story, I was equally engaged, moved, and satisfied. This is quite a feat, considering that about half of the stories are 10 pages long or less. The way that the author illustrates her characters and her scenes has a lot to do with this, I think. Because of her background in film, she is able to masterfully "show" a scene without "telling" too much. The writing is clear and vivid, but without a trace of any extraneous language. This collection is constructed on an economy of words, but contains a wealth of emotion.There are many themes in WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERRACIAL LOVE, and many of them reappear in multiple stories, but in different ways. Some of the more prominent themes are gender roles (adhering to/denying), racial identity, socioeconomic class, beauty standards, romantic/family relationships (often breaking apart throughout the course of the story), artistic endeavors, friendships, and social justice. I was reminded of John Lewis' graphic memoir trilogy MARCH, because some of the short story characters travel from their homes in the North to help with efforts to register Southern African Americans to vote; those characters often suffering or bearing witness to violence against such efforts. One of the most groundbreaking points to take away from this collection is the lack of what is known as "white gaze". The narrators of the stories are all African Americans or other non-white characters. The scenes are so crafted that it might not be obvious to the reader at first, but there are no instances of a white character narrating an African American experience. Even in our modern literary culture, it's difficult to find examples of works that don't contain some degree of white gaze. For this concept to be considered groundbreaking is important, but also concerning, because it indicates a tradition of African Americans not being in charge of their own stories.Containing a range of settings, characters, stories, lengths, and themes - I found WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERRACIAL LOVE to be a completely satisfying reading experience. I was wholly engaged throughout each and every story, which is a difficult feat in and of itself. Considering the stories were written decades ago, many of the themes are just as relevant in today's society as they were at the time of their inception. Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERRACIAL LOVE, and hope that the author's daughter Nina is able to have other stories published. I will read whatever else she has written.

“That day it was clear I should be off in Brazil climbing mountains, surf till a wave snaps my neck, rollerskate down some endless highway, keep fighting with my body, that’s the only time I see clear...everything else makes me sullen…”.This fiery collection of short stories written in the 70s never saw the light of day until decades after Kathleen Collins’ death (such a terrible shame). Collins died at age 46; she was a, playwright, civil rights activist, a pioneer in black female filmmaking, and much more. (Look her up). Ever finished a book and want to flip back to the first page and read again? My one regret is that I’ll never be able to recreate this surprising reading experience again..Despite what the collection’s title would imply, this is not only about the exploration of interracial relationships. However, there are many deep observations delving into romantic relationships, how we can lose our way trying to be “something” for someone else or commit devastating acts in order to be that “perfect” mate for our partner. The most compelling element of this book is Collins’ writing craft. She has such an expressive and avant-garde manner of expressing ideas and moods. She occasionally uses interesting stylistic choices in manners of documentary, screenplay, and stream of consciousness style. Her writing feels very modern, postmodern even..If you read the first couple of stories and you don’t gel with it, keep going: it’ll suddenly hit you in the jugular, and you’ll get on board with her style, and feel every ounce of pain and loss, every morsel of joy, every exhilarating moment of passion. Some stories stole my breath, only for a minute, because I needed to move onto the next story. I’ll leave you with this: “Sometimes I felt like we made love inside of a vacuum that must have been his loneliness. Sometimes I felt we were inside his cool, graceful humor. Only once did I feel we broke all the way through.”

I've never heard of Ms. Collins before and after reading this collection of short stories, l really mourn her death. These stories are a wonderful window into to the life of black intellectual women during the civil rights movement. Not tales of poverty and crime, but stories of educated women expected to succeed in a white world that is not expecting them. Issues of colorism, class, and social climbing and loss. Her writing style is clear and captivating. The story lines still seem current and fresh. So sad that there will not be more but happy that her daughter decided to share these wonderful stories with the world. Check out the link below for more about Ms. Collins and how these lost stories came to light.https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/bo...

My God, what a wonderful set of short stories.Kathleen's beautiful language had me reading the same lines/passages/stories/words over and over again. She made me think of my own life more poetically. My vocabulary has improved for the better, but she also made me think.The title story was intense and hard for me to decipher. I had to Google an explanation and even then, people really couldn't put it into simpler terms. I think that's the beauty of Kathleen's work. It's ambiguous yet straightforward. There's space to put your own thoughts in between the lines. This book is full of tragedy, Blackness, womanhood, sexuality and joy. The first story literally made me gasp aloud, and it was only 3 pages long.If you like a quick read (but please, take your time with this one. Absorb her messages, her prose) then read this! I cannot emphasize it enough.

Needed a break after finishing Jazz. Then jumped into this book and loved every moment. Probably one of my favorite short story collections. Highly recommend reading it. Kathleen Collins is brilliant.