Loving Day (novel)
[3] The novel, set in the Germantown section of Philadelphia,[4] is about Warren Duffy, a comic book artist who inherits a dilapidated mansion from his recently deceased father.He befriends Spider, a fellow teacher and a tattoo artist, and dates Sunita "Sun" Habersham, a comic book aficionado who is a member of the center.He decides he cannot fix the house he inherited well enough to sell it, and begins to fantasize about burning it down and using the insurance money to send Tal to college and start a new life for himself.[7] Johnson described the book as "my coming out as a mulatto" and Baz Dreisinger of The New York Times described Loving Day as "a semi-autobiographical...extended literary metaphor about race and mixed-race in America".For The New York Times, Baz Dreisinger wrote, "the novel ultimately triumphs because it is razor-sharp, sci-fi-flavored satire in the vein of George Schuyler, playfully evocative of black folklore à la Joel Chandler Harris — yet it never feels like a cold theoretical exercise.[6] Jim Ruland in the Los Angeles Times wrote that Johnson's "unrelenting examination of blackness, whiteness and everything in between is handled with ruthless candor and riotous humor".[9] In The Austin Chronicle, Wayne Alan Brenner said "Johnson delivers in the manner to which we've become accustomed: thoroughly, thoughtfully, and with the seriousness of the situation generously leavened with humor."[10] Discussing how the novel changes after Duffy meets the members of the Mélange Center, Michelle Dean in The Guardian wrote, "what has heretofore been a funny, intelligent and self-aware account of a man’s agonized inner life is going to take a turn into high absurdity" and called the novel "a high-energy romp".