“The White Guy’s Guide to Marrying a Black Woman”

“The White Guy’s Guide to Marrying a Black Woman,” a short story by alumni Ed Porter (fiction, ’07) appears in the latest issue of Barrelhouse.

The first rule is, never mention she’s black to your white friends, or your family. After all, why would that matter? Race is the last thing on anyone’s mind. In fact, they didn’t even notice. Who would notice a thing like that? Not them. Not you. It’s the 21st century, and we’re all past that. Anyway, they already know…

Read an interview with Ed about this story at Barrelhousemag.com:

The story is an entry in what is now almost a tradition of how-to second person stories. It’s my homage/riposte to Junot Diaz’s homage/riposte to Lorrie Moore. The unwieldy but very funny titles of those stories, as you may remember are, “How to Be an Other Woman,” (Moore) and “How to Date a Brown Girl (White Girl, Black Girl or Halfie)” (Diaz). It’s also a nod to Melissa Bank’s The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing. The title is me saying, “Hey, I wanna play this game too,” and with luck, it’s also a first clue to the reader about what kind of business the story is going to conduct. I think I started writing the story, and had the title in mind by the end of the first paragraph. I was daunted by the idea of replying to two writers I greatly admired, but that kind of fear is healthy. In that sense, the title is an act of commitment, a way of jumping off the diving board...[Keep Reading]…