The Color of Water

Born Ruchel Dwajra Zylska in Poland in 1921, Ruth is the author’s mother and the narrator for much of the book. At age two, she immigrates to the United States with her Orthodox Jewish rabbi father Tateh, her mother Mameh, and her older brother Sam. Throughout her youth, Ruth is incredibly restless— restlessness stemming in large part from the trauma caused by her father’s regular sexual abuse. Her family eventually settles in Suffolk, Virginia, in the heart of the Jim Crow South. There, Ruth experiences antisemitism from classmates and routinely hears of deadly acts of anti-Black terrorism committed by the Ku Klux Klan and others.

Ruth falls in love with the first person who shows her true affection, a Black man named Peter. After becoming pregnant, she is sent to live with relatives for a year in New York, where she gets an abortion. Although this brings her great pain and sadness, she knows it is the only option—white men in Suffolk would surely lynch Peter if the truth is revealed.

After graduating high school, Ruth moves in with her grandmother Bubeh in the Bronx. Ruth falls in love with Dennis McBride, the author’s father, causing Tateh to disown her. Ruth is now dead to her family, barred even from seeing Mameh on her deathbed. Shortly after, Ruth becomes a devout Christian.

Ruth rarely talks about her Jewish heritage when James is growing up. When James embarks on a journey to uncover his family history, it takes almost a decade for Ruth is willing to open up about her family—the trauma of her abuse and forced separation is too difficult for her to discuss. At the end of the book, she seems to have reconciled with her heritage, as she attends a Jewish wedding with James.

Fishel Shilsky, referred to as “Tateh,” is Ruth’s father. An Orthodox Jewish rabbi, Tateh moves his family around the Northeast during Ruth’s early youth; she likens him to a traveling preacher moving from one town to the next until the local synagogue tires of him. He eventually settles in Suffolk, Virginia where he opens a general store serving the town’s Black residents.

Tyrannical, abusive, and racist, Tateh is characterized by Ruth as a thoroughly hateful and hypocritical man. He has no love for his family, including his wife Mameh, who is often sick and whom he treats as a burden. He routinely enters Ruth’s bedroom at night and rapes her. Everyone in the family is terrified of him, yet only Sam and Ruth escape. After learning that Ruth is living with a Black man as his wife, Tateh disowns her, rendering her effectively dead to her extended family. Tateh even prohibits Ruth from visiting Mameh on her deathbed or participating in her funeral services.

James tries to learn what happened to Tateh after Mameh’s death, but the trail eventually runs cold. In 1982, he learns from one of Tateh’s neighbors that Tateh died many years earlier.

Hudis Shilsky, known as “Mameh,” is Ruth’s mother and the author’s grandmother. A gentle woman, she is the only source of love in the Shilsky household, according to Ruth. Unfortunately, Mameh cannot counterbalance Tateh’s cruelty or to leave him, in large part because she never learned English. Moreover, she experiences a series of lingering symptoms from a childhood bout with polio.

When Ruth finally leaves her family, she is deeply torn about leaving Mameh to the mercy of Tateh, who abuses his wife verbally and possibly physically. Mameh seems to offer her tacit permission for Ruth to leave when she compares Ruth to a flying bird: “A bird who flies is special. You would never trap a bird who flies” (218). Ruth interprets this as an acknowledgment that because she is able to fly, she should not remain trapped in Tateh’s tyrannical and abusive house.

Mameh dies in her forties of a combination of illnesses. Reflecting on Mameh’s suffering and sacrifices, James decides he will never treat his family the way Tateh treated Mameh and Ruth, which he hopes will add meaning to his grandmother’s otherwise pointless and tragic death.

Andrew McBride—referred to by friends and family as “Dennis”—is Ruth’s first husband and James’s father. When Ruth meets him, Dennis works in one of her aunts’ factories. His gentle nature and innate kindness persuade Ruth to break away from Rocky, a pimp grooming her for sex work. For 16 years between 1941 and 1957, Ruth and Dennis live together and raise seven children. They also found the New Brown Memorial Church near the Red Hook Projects, which still stands today. In 1957, Dennis dies of lung cancer while Ruth is pregnant with their eighth child: James.

Hunter Jordan is Ruth’s second husband and the father of four of her children. James, who never met his biological father, considers Hunter his Dad. Born around 1900, Hunter struggles to relate to Ruth’s older children, who have moved past the rhetoric of the mainstream civil rights movement to embrace Black Power. Despite this, Hunter deeply loves his children and stepchildren. They are devastated in 1972 when he dies of a stroke.