Loving Day is a 2015 novel by Mat Johnson, published by Spiegel & Grau on May 26, 2015. It was named a best book of the year by numerous publications and won the American Book Award.
The novel's title refers to Loving Day, the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, which nullified bans on interracial marriage.
Plot
The novel, set in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, is about Warren Duffy, a comic book artist who inherits a dilapidated mansion from his recently deceased father. Warren's father was Irish-American and his mother was Black and had died long ago. Warren was married to a Welsh woman and managing a comic book shop in Cardiff, Wales; the marriage ended in divorce and the shop closed, so Warren returns to Philadelphia.
At a comic book convention, Warren meets his daughter, Tal, who was conceived after a romance he had in his teenage years. Tal, raised as a White girl, had been in the care of her Jewish grandfather, Irv. Warren is unaware of Tal's existence until he meets her.
Tal, who has been arguing with her grandfather, asks to finish high school while living with Warren. After first trying to enroll Tal in an all Black high school, Warren enrolls Tal in the Mélange Center, a school and social organization for mixed-race people. In order to pay Tal's tuition, Warren teaches drawing classes. 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.
As the novel progresses, Warren finds his views on race challenged and questioned. He argues with Sun, Tal, and Roslyn, the director at the Mélange Center, about whether embracing his mixed-race identity means rejecting his blackness. His old friend Tosha, who he reunites with after moving back to Germantown, believes he is rejecting his black roots.
After the police kick the Mélange Center off the land they were staying on because it was a public park, the center relocates to Warren's property. Tal is delighted with this, but Warren is not. 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. Meanwhile, the Mélange Center and other multi-racial organizations are planning for the annual celebration of Loving Day, the anniversary of the day interracial marriage was legalized in the U.S.
Warren, Tal, and Sun all see mysterious figures of a White woman and a Black man on the property. Warren thinks they are drug addicts, but Tal believes they are the ghosts of the first interracial couple. She records a video and the story of the ghost, the Mélange Center, and the upcoming Loving Day celebration is shown on local news.
Tosha and other members of the neighborhood are angry with Warren for letting the Mélange Center move in and accuse Warren of rejecting his Black community. Roslyn welcomes the attention. On Loving Day, Tosha and others protest outside the property, while the celebration itself is well attended. Warren, sick of everything, decides to burn the house down while everyone is distracted by the celebration. He accidentally sets his car on fire first, which causes an explosion and draws a crowd. He tries to run and is arrested by Tosha's husband George. The house then burns down.
Warren spends several days in jail. At first no one visits or calls him, but Sun eventually visits and tells him she forgives him. With help from George, all charges are dropped. Warren returns to his mostly empty property and reunites with Sun and Tal.
Characters
Warren Duffy, a biracial man who moves back to his hometown of Philadelphia following his divorce and his father's death Tal, Warren's daughter who he didn't know about until meeting her when she is 17 Irv Karp, Tal's grandfather on her deceased mother's side Tosha, Warren's old friend who he reconnects with in Philadelphia George, Tosha's husband and a police detective Sunita "Sun" Habersham, a teacher at the Mélange Center who intrigues Warren Roslyn Kornbluth, the director at the Mélange Center Spider, a history teacher and tattoo artist at the Mélange Center
Development
Like the main character of Loving Day, Johnson has an African-American mother and Irish-American father who divorced when he was young. 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".