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Memoirs can be a notoriously hard sell to readers if the writer isn’t famous. Who is this person and why do I care about their life? Fair questions, but shallow ones. Memoirs—meaning, true stories written by the people who lived them—can open up worlds and experiences we can’t access by solely interviews or second-hand summaries. And too, memoirists come up against a challenge that doesn't play out the same way for novelists or filmmakers: the truth.
Davon Loeb’s lyrical memoir The In-Betweens is a poetic coming-of-age that details his experiences growing up in a mostly white community with a Black mother (originally from Alabama) and white Jewish father (originally from Long Island). Loeb, who was raised mostly by his mother and step-father, dives into his struggles to fit in with his peers—bullies surrounded him in suburban New Jersey—and with his own family through short, poetic chapters, some as brief as a simple page.
The language is rich, evocative, and surprising in the best ways. The vignettes are beautiful, certainly, but the real beauty is in Loeb’s acute perceptions; he resists easy answers and latently asks the reader to sit with their own assumptions and biases. And still, the book maintains a dream-like quality, as though we’re sifting through memories right alongside the writer.
Today, Loeb is a 35-year-old English teacher in New Jersey. He was generous enough to sit down with Daily Kos and do an email interview to dig into his memoir, including his path to publication, the realities of teaching during COVID-19, and his impression of how young people are understanding politics and activism today—especially in the age of social media, and all that comes with it.
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