Co-author critiques review of Loida Lewis’s book

The FilAm contributing writer Allen Gaborro’s review of Loida Lewis’s “Why in order to adjoin some historical context to the eventual biracial union of Loida and her husband Reginald.

Should

Guys Have All the Fun?” (February 2023 issue) has prompted a rebuttal from freelance writer Blair Walker, who is Lewis’s co-author.

| Their comments below:

My name is Blair S. Walker and I'm Loida's co-author.

Loida and I have written several books and are comfortable with having our works critiqued by reviewers. While writers can ill-afford to be thin-skinned, we still have an obligation to speak out when subjected to reviews like the one that Allen Gaborro penned about Loida's autobiography.

Gaborro opens by mentioning a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriages…which has nothing to do with what Loida's book is about! She writes movingly of having married her "soulmate," but it appears Gaborro's main takeaway is that Loida exchanged vows with an African American.

Making one question his impartiality and objectivity, Gaborro immediately takes Loida to task for "boastfully" mentioning some of the material possessions she and her Black husband were able to enjoy. Which is odd, because if you're writing your autobiography and have been fortunate enough to own a private jet and luxurious homes in Manhattan and Paris, wouldn't readers like to know?

It seems Allen Gaborro had an ax to grind when he reviewed Loida's book. Because Gaborro makes no mention of Loida's philanthropy, her bid to become a nun, her activism, her successful stewardship of a $2-billion multinational corporation, her Philippine upbringing, her lifelong devotion to Catholicism, her incapacitating depression following the death of her spouse, etc.

Gaborro never set out to write a fair and balanced critique of “Why Should Guys Have All the Fun?” and it shows. Which did The FilAm news readers a huge disservice.

Blair Walker

| Gaborro’s response

I write this in response to Blair S. Walker’s misconstrual of my review of Loida Nicolas Lewis’s memoir “Why Should Guys Have All the Fun?” of which Walker is a co-author.

For starters, Walker is incredulous as to my reference to the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that would legalize interracial marriages. He contends that it was irrelevant to the memoir. I used the ruling

I would ask Walker that without the ruling, would that not have had a significantly obstructionist effect on Loida’s and Reginald’s future marriage plans, especially fated to be as they were in a time when interracial relationships were not widely accepted by society?

Walker also seems to suggest that I fixated on the interracial makeup of Loida’s and Reginald’s marriage as if to efface the evident love and affection they had for one another. I focused on their marriage’s mixed-race component in light of the prejudiced social ethos they had to navigate. I wanted to impress upon the reader the conscientious self-awareness, the courageous freedom of choice, and the compelling narrative of how the Lewises persevered and prospered as a devoted couple in overcoming the adversity of racial attitudes.

Walker comes down on my taking some exception to Loida’s expressed gratification about her and Reginald’s lavish holdings and assets. There is no law preventing rich people from talking about their possessions. It’s just that in a world where crushing poverty is stopping millions of lives in their tracks, it can be argued that more consideration should be given by the privileged when they publicly convey their success, book deal or no book deal.

Having said that, I qualified Loida’s “boasting” as “subconscious” and without artifice. To be sure, she is no Imelda Marcos. We can chalk up Loida’s articulations of fulfillment to human nature. Unfortunately, this thought goes over Blair Walker’s head.

Finally, Walker declares I have an “ax to grind” in not including Loida’s other achievements and life experiences in my review. I had to leave out aspects of Loida’s life due to space limitations. To include even some of them would have meant editing out my criticisms which would have rendered my review into the immaculate appraisal that Walker was hoping for and probably expecting as an overconfident co-author.

Allen Gaborro