This Is How It Goes
By (Author) Neil LaBute
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
19th May 2005
Main
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
813.6
96
Width 126mm, Height 198mm, Spine 7mm
12g
Belinda and Cody Phipps appear to be a typical Midwestern couple: teenage sweethearts, who then married and settled into a comfortable life. Typical, except that Cody is black - 'rich, black, and different', in the words of Belinda, who finds herself attracted to a former (white) classmate. As the battle for her affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly doubt the foundation of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swathe of bigotry and betrayal.
Staged on continually shifting moral ground that challenges our received notions about gender, ethnicity, and even love itself, This Is How It Goes unblinkingly explores the myriad ways in which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in America.
Neil LaBute was born in 1963 in Detroit, Michigan. He is the writer/director of the films In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors, and author of the stage-plays Bash, The Shape of Things (which he also adapted for the screen) and, most recently, The Mercy Seat. He has also directed the feature films Nurse Betty and Possession, the latter adapted from the novel by A. S. Byatt.