The Thread With Kerri Miller

Courtesy of publisher 'Brown White Black' by Nishta J. Mehra Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke to Allison Punch from Old Town Books in Alexandria, Va. When Nishta J. Mehra goes out with her family, people stare. That's just one of the realities she addresses in her essay collection, "Brown White Black: An American Family at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Religion." Bookseller Allison Punch recommends the book and its "beautiful essays." "[Mehra] is an first-generation Indian-American woman who is married to a white woman, and they are raising a black, gender-nonconforming child," Punch said. The essays discuss "her family and her growing up in Memphis, and everything that comes with living with a family with such various identities and lived experiences. "It really resonated with me, because I am also in a queer, interracial relationship, and she talks so beautifully about b