Girl Woman Other LitChart

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Girl, Woman, Other

Evaristo’s novel Lara is a work of fiction based on her family
INTR
INTRODUCTION
ODUCTION history as well as her experiences growing up mixed-race in
England. Girl, Woman, Other likewise tells family stories across
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF BERNARDINE EVARISTO
generations and contains fictionalized references to her
Bernardine Evaristo was born in South East London to an personal experiences. Evaristo’s novel is structurally and
English mother and Nigerian immigrant father. Her father was thematically similar to Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing
Homegoing, a polyphonic
the first black councilor of the Labor Party in his borough. novel that tells the story of a family across generations and
Evaristo studied theatre and drama at various schools, explores slavery’s impact on the African diaspora in the United
eventually earning a doctorate in creative writing. Evaristo was States. Girl, Woman, Other explores similar themes as
at the forefront of several groundbreaking firsts for Black Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah
Americanah, which examines the
women creative writers and artists in England. In 1980, she African diaspora, the cultural impacts of migration, the
cofounded the Theatre of Black Women, and in the 1990s, she pressures and losses of assimilation, and what it means to be
organized Britain’s first Black writers conference. In 2019, she Black in the white, Western world.
became the first mixed-race woman to win the Booker Prize.
Evaristo has authored eleven books and seven plays over the
KEY FACTS
course of her career. A common theme throughout Evaristo’s
works, both fiction and non-fiction, is the African diaspora and • Full Title: Girl, Woman, Other
the social and political complexities that migration creates in a • When Published: 2019
postcolonial world. Girl, Woman, Other, like Evaristo’s other
• Literary Period: Contemporary
works, pushes the boundaries of narrative and stylistic
conventions. Her work often moves across non-linear timelines • Genre: Postmodern Literature, LGBTQ+ Fiction,
Postcolonial Literature
and explores alternative realities. Her satirical novel Blonde
Roots, for example, tells the story of a world where Africans • Setting: London and various other towns and cities across
enslaved Europeans. England
• Climax: Penelope Halifax takes an AncestryDNA test,
discovers that she’s 13% African, and uncovers her birth
HISTORICAL CONTEXT mother’s identity.
Girl, Woman, Other spans generations through its long series of • Point of View: Third Person
flashbacks, reaching as far back as the late 1800s, but the
novel’s present is a single night sometime between 2016 and
EXTRA CREDIT
2019. The novel takes place during England’s “Brexit”
negotiations, a period when the country was embroiled in the In Demand After winning the Booker Prize for Girl, Woman,
debate over whether to remain a member of the EU or not. This Other, Evaristo was highly sought after for interviews. She’s
debate sharply divided the country and inspired the resurgence been featured in two documentary series and on countless
of right-wing, nationalist rhetoric. Most notably, many saw podcasts.
leaving the EU as a way to tighten and control the country’s
borders to reduce and restrict immigration, and as a way to Controversial Choice Evaristo was awarded the Booker Prize
assert English national identity. The novel references the for Girl, Woman, Other alongside Margaret Atwood for her
concurrent presidency of Donald Trump (2016-2020), who novel The TTestaments
estaments. The Booker judges explained that they
activated and emboldened far-right groups in the U.S. and couldn’t decide between the two, and broke the rule
encouraged a culture of open hostility toward immigrants, established in 1992 that stated joint awards are not allowed.
people of color, women, queer people, and many other
marginalized groups. The novel is also set against the backdrop
of climate disaster. The late 2010s saw increasingly devastating PL
PLO
OT SUMMARY
wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves, flooding, and more. England
Girl, Woman, Other is the story of 12 Black British women who
specifically saw record-breaking temperatures and deadly heat
wave. are interconnected in unexpected ways. The novel reads as a
long series of run-on and fragmented sentences, employing a
stream-of-consciousness style to blur together the women’s
RELATED LITERARY WORKS stories across geographies and time. Their stories converge at
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the after-party for Amma Bonsu’s play, The Last Amazon of abandonment upended her life when she was a teenager. She
Dahomey. It’s a groundbreaking night. After racism and works hard as a grocery store manager to provide for her three
discrimination kept Amma on the margins of the mainstream children. Because Shirley convinces Carole to cast LaTisha out
theater world for years, her play, centered around the stories of her life, LaTisha and Carole never realize that they share a
of powerful African women, premieres with five-star acclaim at painful secret–they were both sexually assaulted by a local boy,
London’s National Theatre, a revered cultural institution Trey.
predicated on exclusion and reserved for the white middle and Shirley was always ordinary and conservative compared to
upper classes. Amma, but she becomes a public school teacher because she
The novel begins with Amma’s story. Amma still sees herself as wants to make a difference in the lives of Black students like
the 20-something radical lesbian who, along with her best Carole. She’s bright-eyed, progressive, and successful at the
friend Dominique, made waves in the theater world with their beginning of her career, and she loathes teachers, like Penelope
Bush Woman Theatre Company, which gave voice to the Halifax for their racist, stereotypical views of their students.
women of color whom the mainstream theater world has After years on the job, Shirley loses her passion and starts to
historically silenced. Amma criticizes her once-radical friends complain about her students just like Penelope does.
who sold out in middle age, failing to consider how debuting her Penelope, a white woman, considers herself a groundbreaking
play at the National Theatre undercuts her formerly radical feminist because she has stood up to her male colleagues
beliefs. Yazz, Amma’s college-aged daughter and a member of throughout the years. However, her second-wave feminism is
the “woke” generation, criticizes her mother’s generation for not intersectional. Despite Penelope’s progressive feminist
being out of touch. Yazz struggles to find love and community views, she remains deeply racist, which shows up in the way she
at her predominately white university while struggling to disrespects her multiracial students and Bummi, who becomes
accept what feels like a bleak future in the face of rising white her housekeeper.
supremacy, far-right nationalism, and environmental collapse.
Shirley’s mother, Winsome, wonders how her daughter, who is
Dominique stays out of England, a place where she has never blessed with so much, can be so miserable all the time.
felt fully accepted. She moves to Los Angeles with her Winsome falls in love with Shirley’s husband Lennox in a way
girlfriend, Nzinga, who quickly becomes abusive. After the she’d never been in love with her own husband, Clovis, whom
women break up, Dominique remains in Los Angeles. However, she settled for when she first arrived in London from Barbados.
she returns to England to surprise Amma at the premiere of Winsome and Lennox carry out an affair that Shirley never
Amma’s new play. discovers.
Carole Williams, the daughter of a proud Nigerian immigrant Morgan, a popular LGBTQ+ internet activist, finds themselves
mother, Bummi, grew up in a council flat and attended a in the audience of Amma’s play on assignment to write a review
struggling public school where teachers like Shirley King and and, upon running into Yazz at the after party, realizes they met
Penelope Halifax burned out and became jaded. To Bummi’s previously at one of Morgan’s guest lectures. Morgan is
dismay, Carole assimilates into white, British culture, seeing it multiracial. Their family endured years of racist abuse in the
as the only path toward achieving financial stability and success small English village where their family farm, Greenfields,
as a Black woman in England. Shirley, Carole’s teacher, stands. They struggle with severe internalized racism because
spearheads Carole’s assimilation. Shirley is also Amma’s close of their past. When Morgan realizes that they are non-binary
friend from childhood— they were the only Black girls at their and changes their name and pronouns, it’s their grandmother,
primary school. Shirley encourages Carole to separate herself Hattie, who supports them wholeheartedly while the rest of
from her childhood friends like LaTisha. (LaTisha is a Black kid the family struggles to accept their identity.
growing up in public housing with no father in the picture, and
Hattie is a powerful woman, still robust in her 90s, and her
these conditions make Shirley believe that LaTisha will
identity is firmly rooted in the farm. She married Slim, an
eventually succumb to teenage pregnancy, drug addiction, or
African American man who was both proudly Black and
gang affiliation). After getting into Oxford, a place where she
politically involved. Their children, however, reject their Black
initially feels so out of place that she wants to leave, Carole
identities because of the cruel racism they experience. Hattie is
marries Freddy, a white, English man and becomes Vice
haunted by the unsolved mystery that haunted her own
President of an important bank.
mother, Grace, throughout her life: the question of her father’s
Bummi, meanwhile, has her own secrets. She’s settled down identity, a man she knows only as “the Abyssinian.” Grace has
with a boyfriend, Kofi, but still yearns for the woman with always been proud of her Ethiopian ancestry, even though she
whom she had a secret affair following the death of her beloved never got to know her father. Grace, a multiracial woman, grew
husband. up motherless in England in the early 1900s. She was working
LaTisha focuses on turning her life around after her father’s as a maid when a wealthy, landowning, white Englishman asked
her to marry him, which is how she came to call Greenfields her

home. color. Amma’s radical politics distances her from her oldest
Amma’s play is the connecting force that directly and indirectly childhood friend, Shirley, who took the path of reform.
brings these 12 women together. The women wind up in the Nonetheless, the two remain friends into adulthood, and this
audience of Amma’s play for different reasons, but they’re all reflects one of the books overarching messages: that both the
there to witness a momentous occasion: the premier of a play reformer and the radical have a role to play in social change. In
by and for Black women at London’s most esteemed National the novel’s present, Amma is middle aged and has settled down
Theatre, a bastion for the white and wealthy. While they all in a polyamorous relationship with two partners, Dolores and
agree that it’s a significant moment of change and progress, the Jackie, who are both white. Amma finally finds success in the
women in the audience have complicated feelings about what mainstream theater world with her play, The Last Amazon of
this moment means and if it speaks to their own identities and Dahomey, which opens at London’s National Theatre to five-
experiences. It’s this coming together that ultimately highlights star acclaim. This success leaves Amma torn between her old
both the power and limitations of stories as a bonding and identity as a radical and her emerging identity as someone who
representative force, becoming, too a meta-commentary on the is reforming systems from within.
novel itself, which is sweeping celebration of both the Yazz – Yazz is Amma and Roland’s daughter. She relentlessly
interconnectedness and individuality of the twelve women at criticizes her parents for what they believe are their
the heart of this story. progressive beliefs, but that Yazz sees as out of touch. Yazz has
Girl, Woman, Other ends on a shocking DNA discovery. inherited her family’s revolutionary spirit and is deeply
Penelope, who long knew she was adopted, finds out that she’s committed to social justice. However, just like her mother, she
the baby that Hattie gave birth to at 14 and named can be so focused on criticizing others that it blinds her to her
Barbara—the baby whom she loved but had to give up to own privileges and hypocrisies. Yazz falls into the trap of
avoiding bringing shame to her family. This revelation ranking her peers from most to least oppressed, failing to
challenges Penelope’s racist beliefs and shows her how all acknowledge how intersectionality complicates the simple
identities and forms of oppression are intersectional. While this narrative she tries to impose on the world around her. Yazz
single moment doesn’t magically rid her of her deeply attends a university where the student body is predominately
embedded racist thinking, the immediate and overwhelming white and wealthy, which often leaves her feeling out of place.
love she feels when she sees her mother’s face for the first time She and her friends Waris and Nenet initially connect because
makes her realize how wrong she was to hold and perpetuate they are three among the few women of color at the college.
her racist beliefs. Through both this homecoming and the after- They call themselves “The Unfuckables,” asserting their right to
party for Amma’s play, the novel ends on a note of togetherness exist and succeed within an institution of power and privilege.
that celebrates community in all its imperfection and Even though her unconventional upbringing was sometimes
complexity. challenging, Yazz is proud of it and defends her parents against
anyone who suggests that the way she was raised may have
been damaging to her.
CHARA
CHARACTERS
CTERS Dominique – Dominique is Amma’s best friend. Her parents,
Cecilia and Wintley, are both Guyanese immigrants. Dominique
MAJOR CHARACTERS leaves home at sixteen to move to London, where she can live
Amma – Amma is Yazz’s mother and Dominque’s best friend. openly as a lesbian and pursue a career in acting. Dominque
Amma grew up with her father, Kwabena, a Ghanian journalist founds the Bush Women Theatre Company with Amma after
who was forced to immigrate to the UK after campaigning for both grow tired of the demeaning typecasting and racism they
the independence movement, and her multiracial, English-born experience within the mainstream theater community.
mother, Helen. As a young person with fierce and radical Dominique works alongside Amma until she meets and falls in
feminist politics, Amma relentlessly criticized both her mother love with Nzinga, an American woman. Dominique follows
and father for lacking feminist perspective, only later Nzinga to the U.S. and soon becomes trapped in an abusive
understanding how generational differences and their relationship with Nzinga, who isolates, controls, and physically
unresolved traumas impacted their social and political views. attacks her. With the help of Gaia, the woman who owns the
Amma is now on the other side of the generational divide. Her women’s commune where Dominique and Nzinga live,
daughter, Yazz, subjects her to the same incessant criticism she Dominque escapes Nzinga and starts a new life in Los Angeles.
once doled out to her own parents. Amma became an activist in She rebuilds a successful career in theater with a continued
high school. In her twenties, she adopted a radical political focus on elevating the voices of women of color. She becomes
identity and, with Dominique, formed the Bush Woman ensnared in the generational divide when her women’s music
Theatre Company, which sought to dismantle the white- festival draws criticism for not being trans-inclusive. She meets
supremacist mainstream theater world and elevate women of Laverne, whom she will eventually marry and adopt two

children with, while attending a support group for survivors of Sister Omofe, a Nigerian woman with whom she falls in love
domestic violence.. Dominique rarely visits the UK because it and has a secret affair until shame compels her to end the
no longer feels like home, but she returns to surprise Amma at relationship. Bummi, like many first-generation immigrant
the premiere of Amma’s most recent play, The Last Amazon of mothers, wants Carole to have more opportunities than she
Dahomey. and Augustine had in their home country. When Carole wants
Carole Williams – Carole experiences poverty in her to leave Oxford, it’s Bummi who tells her that she can’t let white
childhood; she and her Nigerian immigrant mother, Bummi, live people scare her away from the opportunities she deserves as a
in public housing. Growing up, Carole is a good student and is native-born, English citizen. However, Bummi later regrets how
uninterested in boys or parties. Everything changes when Carole’s eventual success distances Carole from her Nigerian
Carole attends a party at her friend LaTisha’s house and a culture. Eventually, Bummi settles down with Kofi, a Ghanian
college student named Trey sexually assaults her. Carole keeps man who provides her with a stable life and home and makes
her assault a secret for the rest of her life, and her unaddressed peace with Carole’s choices.
trauma often leaves her feeling disconnected from her body. LaTisha Jones – LaTisha is Carole’s childhood best friend.
Carole’s mother, like many immigrant parents, has sacrificed Unbeknownst to LaTisha, Trey and some of his friends sexually
everything to give Carole a shot at success in England. Carole assault Carole at a house party that LaTisha throws in year
feels the weight of this expectation and enlists Mrs. Shirley nine. In a tragic twist of fate, Tray later assaults LaTisha, too,
King, her teacher, to help her get back on track academically. and she becomes pregnant with her third child, Jordan. LaTisha
Mrs. King encourages Carole to find success by assimilating has a happy and secure childhood, but this changes after her
into white English culture, and Carole’s assimilation accelerates father, Glenmore Jones, abandons the family for another secret
furiously upon her arrival at the University of Oxford, where family. LaTisha loves her father deeply, and his sudden
she feels out of place among her wealthy (and mostly white) departure causes her to act out at school and at home. Carole,
classmates. After college, Carole marries a white man, Freddy, her teachers, and even her own mother all view LaTisha as a
whose parents disapprove of his marrying a Black woman. stereotypical “ghetto” girl destined for teen pregnancy, drug
Carole eventually becomes vice president of a major bank, one addiction, and poverty, and as a result, they leave her to fend
of the few women of color in a white, male-dominated field. In for herself. LaTisha’s story reveals how racists stereotypes can
this way, Carole belongs to the group of characters who become self-fulfilling prophecies. Without guidance or support,
challenge oppressive systems lawfully and from within those LaTisha gets pregnant at 18. At the novel’s present, LaTisha is
systems. Though Carole achieves the success her immigrant almost 30. She is a single mother to three children, all from
parents wanted for her, to Bummi’s dismay, this success costs different and entirely absent fathers, and she works as a
Carole her Nigerian culture. Carole’s story highlights the manager at a grocery store. She’s ready to turn her life around
struggle that second-generation immigrants can experience and is reinventing herself as the “New LaTisha.” When her
when they become caught between their parents’ expectations father suddenly reappears and begs his family to take him back,
that they succeed in a new country and adhere to cultural LaTisha disregards her own hurt for the sake of her youngest
traditions. who, lacking a father figure, has begun to rebel just like LaTisha
Bummi Williams – Bummi is Carole’s mother and Augustine’s did when she was younger. In this way, LaTisha aspires to help
wife. Bummi was born in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, in a town her children break the cycle of oppression.
destroyed by foreign oil companies. Her early life is marked by Shirle
Shirleyy King – Shirley is Amma’s oldest friend, and the daughter
significant tragedy and hardship. Both her parents (Moses and of Barbadian immigrants, Winsome and Clovis. Shirley has
Iyatunde) die when she is still young, and she lives in extreme always been more conservative than Amma, and in her work as
poverty in Lagos until moving in with a harsh, distant cousin, a teacher, she acts as a lawful reformer rather than a radical.
Aunty Ekio, who makes her work as her house-servant. Bummi Shirley arrives at the Peckham School for Boys and Girls
is studying math at university when she meets and falls deeply determined to help empower lower-class children of
in love with Augustine Williams. They marry and, facing a lack immigrants like herself. Shirley is immediately successful, which
of job opportunities in Nigeria, move to London. However, causes a rift between Shirley and Penelope Halifax, one of
English society finds their Nigerian academic backgrounds Shirley’s conservative, racist, and jaded coworkers. Shirley’s
invalid, and this forces them to take underpaid work in the success leaves her under immense pressure to continue being a
service sector. Bummi is devastated when Augustine dies, great teacher as well as an advocate for Black people
leaving her to parent Carole alone. Augustine’s death motivates everywhere. As the years pass, however, Shirley falters under
Bummi to start her own cleaning company, and she has sex with this pressure and becomes disenchanted by her difficult job,
the Bishop of her church, who then gives her a cash loan to and she starts to view vulnerable, struggling students like
start her business. Bummi builds a successful cleaning company LaTisha through the same racist stereotypes as the coworkers
staffed by first-generation immigrant women. Among them is she once hated. Meanwhile, she privileges students like Carole

who behave and demonstrate potential. Eventually, Shirley significant strides within a male-dominated workplace.
becomes close friends and allies with her former nemesis, Penelope is angry that new teachers like Shirley fail to
Penelope. Shirley’s story demonstrates how the pressures to recognize the feminist progress she’s made at the school.
succeed in a white-supremacist society can create internalized Meanwhile, Penelope fails to see how her feminism suffers
racism in oppressed people of color. Shirley is married to from its lack of intersectionality. After retiring, Penelope hires
Lennox, a kind, attractive, and supportive husband, and they Bummi to clean her house, and she asserts her perceived racial
have two daughters together, Rachel and Karen. Lennox is fun superiority over Bummi by forbidding Bummi from speaking.
and warmhearted compared to Shirley who, as Winsome notes, Eventually, Bummi confides in her about the misfortunes of her
is perpetually unsatisfied despite her comfortable life. life, revealing how white women often demand not only
Winsome, a first-generation immigrant, can’t understand how physical but emotional labor from women of color. Penelope
Shirley, who has benefited so greatly from her parents’ hard was married twice, and both relationships ended due to the
work and sacrifice, can be so unhappy. men’s misogyny. Penelope is adopted. Her adoptive parents
Winsome Robinson – Winsome is Shirley’s mother and Clovis’s broke the news to her when she was 16, and the news
wife. As first-generation Barbadian immigrants, Winsome and devastated. Years later, per her daughter Sarah’s advice,
Clovis have made immense sacrifices so that their English-born Penelope buys an AncestryDNA test. She’s when her results
children could find success and opportunity in England. show that she is 13 percent African, and she’s even more
Winsome meets Clovis not long after arriving in England. The surprised when her birth mother, Hattie, contacts her.
couple immediately bonds over their shared immigrant Penelope travels to Greenfields to reunite with Hattie, and
background. Winsome feels indifferently toward Clovis but their loving reunion shows Penelope how wrong she was to
marries him because he offers safety and stability; this is one of harbor racist beliefs her whole life.
the many sacrifices that Winsome makes as an immigrant. Soon Megan/Morgan Malinga – Morgan is Julie and Chimongo’s
after marrying, Clovis convinces Winsome to move south to a daughter and Hattie’s great-grandchild. Morgan, who was born
fishing town. She agrees, but only because, as his wife, she feels Megan, was always a tomboy but their mother forced
obligated to accompany him. Though racism prevents Winsome femininity onto them. Morgan’s fraught relationship with their
from getting work as a fisherman, he insists that they settle in mother illustrates how women can go against their best
the countryside, which Winsome tolerates until she can no interest and become enforcers of the patriarchy’s gendered
longer sit back and watch her children experience racism from expectations. Hattie, who Morgan calls GG, is the only one who
their teachers and peers. In a moment of feminist conviction, accepts them for who they are. Morgan’s struggles with their
Winsome tells Clovis she’s taking the children back to London gender lead them to drop out of high school and experience
with or without him; Clovis follows the family to London. drug addiction. Morgan later gets clean and moves out of their
Decades later, Winsome falls in love and has an affair with parent’s house. No longer behold to their family’s expectations,
Shirley’s husband Lennox, whom she sees as a better version of Morgan explores and invents their own identity for the first
Clovis—as a member of the younger, more progressive time. Morgan retreats into chat rooms where they eventually
generation, Lennox treats Shirley as his equal, whereas Clovis meet Bibi, the transgender woman who introduces them to the
expected Winsome to be an obedient wife. In their old age, transgender community and eventually becomes their
Winsome and Clovis return to their native Barbados, and their romantic partner. Morgan is shocked when Hattie decides to
quality of life immediately improves. Winsome, for instance, leave Greenfields to them and Bibi, suggesting that they turn it
starts attending a women’s book club, allowing her to explore into a refuge for the trans community. With the farm, Morgan
intellectual pursuits that her hard life as a first-generation inherits land and power typically reserved for white men,
immigrant denied her. Their homecoming challenges reductive creating a future in which marginalized communities have
immigrant narratives that suggest life is always ultimately access to both the refuge and empowerment that land
better in an immigrant’s adopted country. Winsome struggled ownership provides. Morgan’s Twitter account launches them
for much of her adult life to give Shirley the opportunities into internet activist fame, which allows them to make their
Shirley would need to succeed in England, so Shirley’s living as a writer. Morgan meets Yazz at a guest lecture at
perpetual unhappiness puzzles and wounds Winsome. Yazz’s university, encountering her again at the premiere for
Penelope Halifax/Barbar
Halifax/Barbaraa – Penelope Halifax is Shirley’s The Last Amazon of Dahomey, which Morgan is reviewing for
coworker at the Peckham School. Penelope is old and jaded, work. Morgan’s unconventional path to success without a high
and she regards the students with open hostility. Her low school or college degree, suggests that assimilation into the
expectations for them are grounded in her racist beliefs about mainstream isn’t the only path to success.
her low-income, Black students—beliefs that were passed GG” Jackson – Hattie grew up on Greenfields
Hattie ““GG”
down to her from her horribly racist mother, Margaret. At the Farmhouse, the only child of her mother, Grace, and father
same time, Penelope is a diehard feminist and has made Joseph Rydendale. At 14, Hattie gets pregnant and gives birth

to a baby girl who she names Barbara. Hattie wants to keep Becoming Yazz’s father profoundly changes Roland, motivating
Barbara, but her father forces Hattie to put Barbara up for him to be his best self and achieve success. He loves her deeply
adoption. He swears Hattie to secrecy, and Hattie never tells and wishes that she would recognize, rather than criticize, the
anyone about Barbara, not even her husband Slim. This part of remarkable opportunities his success has afforded her. Their
her story reveals the power that men, and specifically fathers, relationship reveals how generational differences can sour
have over women’s bodies. Hattie’s life and identity are deeply parent-child relationships.
rooted in Greenfields, an inheritance she is proud of and wants Sylv
Sylvester
ester – Sylvester is one of Amma’s oldest friends. Sylvester
to keep in the family. Although her father expected that she is queer and used to go by the name Sylvie. He wore dresses
pass the farm down to her son Sonny, Hattie decides to give it and had long hair, proudly challenging gender norms alongside
to Morgan. Hattie’s decision simultaneously disrupts the his partner, Curwen. He maintains the radical political views he
gendered and patriarchal transfer of land and, most held in his 20s and continues to run his socialist theater
importantly, ensures that the land stays in Black hands (Hattie’s companies, putting on plays in community centers and
children, possible due to racism they experienced in childhood, demanding social change from outside society’s institutions. He
have married into white families and distanced themselves repeatedly calls Amma a sellout for premiering The Last Amazon
from their Blackness). Like Slim, Hattie is proud of her racial of Dahomey at the National Theatre, and this creates tension
and cultural identity, and she wants the farm, which she between them. Sylvester sees the debate between radical and
eventually discovers was founded by her slave runner ancestor reformist approaches in black and white. He is unforgiving
Captain Linnaeus Rydendale, to stay in the hands of the people toward those who take a reformist approach, failing to see that
whose ancestors suffered for it. both sides depend on each other to make social change.
Gr
Grace
ace – Grace is Hattie’s mother and Joseph Rydendale’s wife. Sylvester’s refuses to acknowledge his own hypocrisies, mainly
She grows up not knowing her father, Wolde’s, identity, and this how his middle-class upbringing, which has allowed him to
haunts her for her entire life. After Grace’s mother dies of pursue the arts, contradicts his radical beliefs.
tuberculosis when she is still young, Grace is later shipped off Waris – Waris is one of Yazz’s three best friends. The friends
to a home for girls where she’s educated by people who teach call themselves “The Unfuckables.” Waris is the daughter of
her that she must tone down her Blackness if she wants to Somali immigrants who fled the country’s civil war. She wears a
succeed in white society. Grace always remembers how her hijab as a political statement in the face of racism. Waris is
mother taught her to never be ashamed of her Ethiopian roots, fierce and confident in her beliefs but insecure in her body. Yazz
though, so Grace holds tight to that cultural identity regardless. admires Waris because, in Yazz’s view, she’s suffered the most
Racism prevents Grace from working at a local department out of their friend group. However, Waris tells Yazz not to
store like she dreams, and instead she’s offered a job as a maid. victimize her because Waris’s mother, Xaanan, didn’t raise her
Her life changes one day when she meets Joseph Rydendale, a to be a victim. Waris’s story reveals how even other women of
white man, who sings her praises but also objectifies and color can view each other through problematic and demeaning
exoticizes her due to her Ethiopian roots. When she and Joseph lenses despite their best intentions.
marry, she moves onto his family farm, Greenfields. Joseph is
determined to have a boy who will inherit the farm, but Grace Courtne
Courtneyy – Courtney is one of Yazz’s three best friends that
bears two children who die shortly after birth. Impatient, make up her squad, “The Unfuckables.” A white girl who
Joseph doesn’t allow her to recover before making her try experienced poverty growing up on her family’s farm in a rural
again, and soon Harriet is born. She sinks into a deep, community, Courtney is woefully ignorant about race, and her
postpartum depression that leaves her completely comments often contain microaggressions and racists
uninterested in Harriet, though she later recovers and strives stereotypes. Yazz scrutinizes Courtney for this but takes her
to raise Harriet to be a strong, independent woman. under her wing and sets out to educate her in all things social
justice. Courtney later calls Yazz out for her habit of ranking
Roland Quarte
Quarteyy – Roland is Amma’s co-parent and Yazz’s their friend group in order from most to least oppressed, citing
father. Roland is a professor and author who has found Roxane Gay’s warning against playing the “privilege Olympics.”
mainstream success as a major television news personality. The Courtney’s knowledge of Gay earns Courtney newfound
son of African immigrants, Roland decides early on to assimilate respect with Yazz. Courtney’s dad is racist and anti-immigrant,
and pursue mainstream success—to reform systems from and Courtney, who professes that she’s only interested in Black
within rather than from the outside as a radical like Amma. He men, can’t wait to upset him when she brings a Black man home
hates when people who interview him on TV force him into the one day. Courtney’s character reveals the complexity inherent
role of spokesman for Black people and cultural diversity. He to identity, and how intersectionality complicates the simple
never wanted to base his academic career on his identity as a narratives that society puts forth about race, class, and identity.
gay, Black, man the way that society expects of Black people in
academia, as Amma has done with her theater career. Nenet – Nenet is one of Yazz’s three best friends that make up
her squad, “The Unfuckables.” Nenet is Egyptian and has a

boyfriend to whom she’s arranged to be married. Much to Shirley never uncovers this secret.
Waris’s frustration, Nenet identifies as Mediterranean, refusing Clo
Clovis
vis – Clovis is Winsome’s husband and Shirley’s father. An
to call herself Black or African. Her family in Egypt is wealthy immigrant from Barbados, Clovis meets and marries Winsome
and well connected, and in London, they live in a mansion, not long after her arrival in England. The marriage gives
complete with domestic servants. Nenet is always decked out Winsome safety and comfort in the early and overwhelming
in designer clothes, and she later admits that she pays someone days of her new life in the UK. Despite Winsome’s
to do her schoolwork for her, which is why her grades are so protestations and the hostile racism they in the south of
high. In light of these revelations, Yazz starts to question their England, Clovis stubbornly insists that the family move to the
friendship,. Nenet’s story reveals how class complicates racial countryside, where he finds work as a stevedore and spends his
and ethnic identity. Nenet’s deeply internalized racism leaves nights at the bar. When Winsome later gives Clovis an
her wanting to distance herself from her African identity. ultimatum, Clovis agrees to move back to London. Clovis never
Nzinga – Nzinga is Dominique’s abusive girlfriend. Nzinga’s finds out about Winsome and Lennox’s affair.
abusive personality is a direct result of the devastating abuse Kwabena – Kwabena is Amma’s father and Helen’s husband.
and neglect she suffered as a child growing up in Texas. Nzinga Kwabena, a journalist from Ghana, was forced to flee his
is stopping over in London on her way home from a trip to homeland after advocating for the country’s independence. He
Ghana when she meets Dominique, who immediately falls for met Helen after migrating to the UK. Kwabena maintains his
her. Nzinga is steadfast in her Black, feminist beliefs, taking fierce socialist convictions in the UK. His life centers around his
them to an extreme that even young, radical Amma can’t activism and constantly inundates his wife and children with his
believe. Amma immediately dislikes and distrusts Nzinga, political preaching, which helps Amma grow into her own
seeing how Nzinga has complete control over Dominique. In activist identity that comes to define her life’s work. He
turn, Nzinga sees Amma as a threat to her control over infuriates Amma because he isn’t a feminist, though. While
Dominique. Dominique follows Nzinga to the U.S., where they Dominique understands that Kwabena is a product of his time
live and work on women’s communes. Nzinga abused the and tells Amma not to criticize him so harshly, it’s not until after
girlfriend she had before Dominique and abuses the girlfriend he dies that Amma admits she was too harsh and understands
she finds after Dominque escapes. Her cycle of abuse doesn’t the depths of the trauma he experienced after being forced to
end until she dies following a major stroke. flee from his birthplace.
Augustine Williams – Augustine is Carole’s father and Bummi’s Helen – Helen is Amma’s mother and Kwabena’s wife. Born in
husband. Augustine came from a progressive Nigerian family 1935, Helen is biracial and faced intense racism growing up in a
who readily accepted Bummi when Augustine brought her small, Scottish city. She escapes to London where she meets
home, regardless of the fact that she was poor and without a and eventually marries Kwabena. Helen worked a full-time job
family. Augustine has a doctorate from the University of Ibadan while maintaining sole responsibility for the household chores
in Nigeria, but upon immigrating to London, his credentials and childcare. Amma thinks her mother is oppressed and
prove useless. Far from being the land of opportunity he unfulfilled and lacks the feminist insight to stand up for herself.
imagined, Augustine is forced to work as a taxi driver. He works
Freddy – Freddy is Carole’s white husband from a privileged
long days and nights to provide for his wife and daughter,
background. His parents harbor racist views and were shocked
working under immense stress and fueled by a poor diet. One
when he announced he was marrying a Black woman from a
New Year’s day, when Carole is still young, Augustine is driving
lower-class background. Despite his best intentions, Freddy
drunk when he suffers a heart attack that kills him. His story
brings his unconscious biases into his relationship with Carole.
highlights the extreme sacrifices that first-generation
While this means their relationship isn’t perfect, Freddy still
immigrant parents make for their second-generation children.
makes Carole happy in many ways.
Lenno
ennoxx King – Lennox is Shirley’s husband and Rachel and
Iyatunde – Iyatunde is Bummi’s mother and Moses’s wife.
Karen’s dad. He is a doting and supportive husband who treats
When Moses dies, Iyatunde and Bummi are forced to live with
his wife as his equal. When they have kids, he’s an involved and
Iyatunde’s parents. When her father intends to marry Bummi
caring father. Like Shirley, Lennox is the second-generation
off as soon as possible, Iyatunde escapes with Bummi to Lagos.
child of Afro-Caribbean immigrants. In his youth, he was
In Lagos, Iyatunde begs for work. A sawmill eventually hires
determined to achieve upward mobility but understood that
her, but she works long and backbreaking days. When Bummi is
society viewed him, a Black man, as a threat. Growing up in the
15, Iyatunde is killed in a horrific saw accident, leaving her
stop-and-frisk era traumatizes him, and he becomes a lawyer so
daughter orphaned. Iyatunde’s story reveals both the cultural
that he can reform the system from within. One day, Lennox
and physical sacrifices that parents make for their children.
shows up on his mother-in-law, Winsome’s, doorstep and
initiates a passionate affair with her. Just as suddenly as it Tre
reyy – Trey grew up in the same neighborhood as Carole and
begins, Lennox ends the affair and never speaks of it again. LaTisha. He is in college when he shows up at teenage LaTisha’s

house party and sexually assaults Carole. Years later, he asks refuses to see a psychiatrist. Like LaTisha, Jayla’s story shows
LaTisha out and sexually assaults her as well, leaving her how men’s irresponsible decisions and abandonment can have
pregnant with her third child, Jordan. At ten, Jordan is already a devastating consequences.
troublemaker, which LaTisha believes he inherited from Trey. Margaret – Margaret is Penelope’s mother and Edwin’s wife.
Trey’s story reveals the ways in which men perpetuate violence When she was young her family migrated to the Union of South
against women. Africa to take advantage of a 1913 law that distributed 80
Glenmore Jones – Glenmore is LaTisha’s father. He upends her percent of South African land to white people. When the Black
world when he abandons his family to go live in the U.S. with workers on her father’s farm weren’t working hard enough, he
one of Pauline’s friends, with whom he has a secret second took the advice of his neighbors and flogged them. This worked
family. Glenmore was a loving and devoted father, but he for a while until one day, when his workers attacked him back.
always favored LaTisha, which the girls only later understand After that, the family moved back to England. Margaret’s time
when Pauline reveals that Glenmore isn’t Jayla’s biological dad. in South Africa leaves her with deeply embedded and vile racist
When Glenmore returns years later and begs his family to take beliefs, which she then passes down to Penelope.
him back, Pauline readily accepts him. LaTisha lets him back in Giles – Giles is Penelope’s first husband and Adam and Sarah’s
for the sake of her youngest child, Jordan, who at 10 is already father. Penelope meets Giles in high school, shortly after she’s
acting out and needs a father figure in his life. Glenmore’s story crushed by the revelation that she’s adopted; she leans on him
reveals the impact that men have on their families, and how for emotional support and becomes quickly attached. Giles’s
their irresponsible actions can wreak havoc and destruction in sexist beliefs—specifically his insistence that Penelope stay
the lives of those around them. home and care for the children and domestic duties, denying
Pauline Jones – Pauline is LaTisha and Jayla’s mother. Her her desire to make us of her teaching degree–eventually
husband, Glenmore, cheats on her with one of her friends and persuade Penelope to end their relationship.
later abandons his and Pauline’s children. Pauline is a social Phillip – Phillip is Penelope’s second husband. She meets him
worker, but when LaTisha starts acting out after Glenmore shortly after her breakup with Giles and falls in love quickly,
leaves, she struggles to control LaTisha. When LaTisha gets largely due to their sexual chemistry. Phillip is a psychologist,
pregnant at 18, Pauline is angry and ashamed. They fight which is what eventually begins to ruin the relationship.
constantly, and she kicks LaTisha and LaTisha’s young son Penelope tires of his habit of constantly psychoanalyzing her,
Jason out of the house. Pauline gives up on LaTisha the same By the time Penelope discovers that Giles is having sex with a
way that the rest of society has, essentially viewing her younger woman, she and Giles are already living separate lives
daughter through the same destructive and stereotypical lens in separate parts of the house.
as white, racist English society. Eventually, she lets LaTisha
Sar
Sarah
ah – Sarah is Penelope’s daughter who moves to Australia.
move back in and helps LaTisha with childcare. When
This breaks Penelope’s heart because, even though she often
Glenmore shows up many years later, Pauline takes him back.
complained about her raucous grandkids, she realizes she’ll
Jordan Jones – Jordan is LaTisha’s 10-year-old son. The miss them when they’re gone. Like her brother, Adam, Sarah
youngest child, Jordan takes after his father, Trey, and is favors their father, Giles. This upsets Penelope, seeing as she
already a troublemaker. When LaTisha’s estranged father, was the one who raised them after the divorce. Sarah suggests
Glenmore, shows back up in their lives, Jordan takes to him that Penelope take the AncestryDNA test to find out more
immediately, and, for his sake, LaTisha lets her father back into about her birth family and later helps her connect with her
her life. Jordan’s story is a lesson in generational trauma. birth mother, Hattie.
Without a father figure, Jordan acts out just as LaTisha did
Julie – Julie is Morgan’s mother and Hattie’s granddaughter.
when her father disappeared. Thus, LaTisha’s decision to
Julie’s family was outraged when she brought a Malawian man,
forgive Glenmore represents her desire to break that cycle of
Chimongo, home, because by that point, the family could pass
generational trauma that left her vulnerable.
as white. Hattie is the only member of her family who
Ja
Jayla
yla Jones – Jayla is LaTisha’s sister and Pauline’s daughter. immediately accepts Chimongo. Their relationship highlights
Sometime after their father, Glenmore, leaves, Pauline reveals the complexities of interracial love in white-supremacist
that Jayla has a different dad, which explains why Glenmore society.
always favored LaTisha. Against all advice, Jayla goes in search
Chimongo – Chimongo is Morgan’s father and Julie’s husband.
of her biological dad. She shows up at his mother’s house, and
He doesn’t turn away when Julie’s white-passing family objects
the old woman is upset to discover that he has yet another child
to her marrying a Black man, and he eventually wins them over.
he didn’t know about. Her biological father refuses to meet her,
His story highlights how interracial relationships place undue
leaving Jayla crushed. As an adult, Jayla lives at home with her
burden on the person of color in the relationship. Chimongo is
mother and LaTisha, and she helps take care of Jason, Jantelle,
hard-working like Slim, and he likewise wants his children to be
and Jordan. She suffers from an unknown mental illness but

proud of their race. He buys them picture books featuring lynched. This highlights a generational divide between Slim and
Black characters so they can see themselves represented in his children. The horrors that Slim witnessed in his childhood
stories. When Hattie finds out about this, she feels guilty and leave him politically aware and with a strong sense of Black
wonders if there were books like that back in the 1940s that pride that his children don’t inherit. Instead, they are ashamed
could have helped her own children love themselves, to be seen with him, revealing how white supremacy destroys
highlighting how social progress is benefitting the younger family relationships and cultural pride and identity. Slim
generations. Throughout Morgan and Julie’s fights over eventually dies of cancer, leaving Hattie heartbroken for the
Morgan’s gender identity, Chimongo takes a backseat and rest of her life.
defers to his wife. Ada Mae – Ada Mae is Hattie and Slim’s daughter. She is named
Bibi – Bibi is Morgan’s long-term partner who introduced them after Slim’s mother. Like her brother, Sonny, Ada Mae’s
to the transgender community after connecting in an online childhood was fraught with hostile and racist bullying that she
chat room. Bibi is a transgender woman whose Indian family internalizes until she hates being Black. She and Sonny are
has disowned her, highlighting how second-generation children embarrassed to be seen in public with Slim, so they start to
of immigrants are often cut off by their families when the fail to distance themselves from him despite his fierce love for them.
meet their cultural expectations. Bibi works at a nursing home, This tragedy reveals how white-supremacist society can
and the old people there loved and accepted her through her destroy family relationships. When Ada is 16 and Sonny 17,
transition. Bibi educates Morgan, who is initially very they dramatically leave home for London, swearing never to
uninformed and ignorant about gender identity, and she helps return to their miserable lives at Greenfields. Ada Mae has
Morgan come into their own trans identity. worked in a factory for much of her life, and this has left her
Daisy – Daisy is Grace’s mother and Hattie’s great- body in bad shape. She marries a white man, and with each
grandmother. Daisy was 16 when she got pregnant by Wolde, passing generation, the family gets whiter until none of them
an Ethiopian seaman who stopped over in her coastal, English identify as Black any longer, demonstrating how internalized
town. He promises to return, and although he never does, racism can completely erase racial and cultural identity.
Grace never lets his memory die. As Grace is growing up, Daisy Sonn
Sonnyy – Sonny is Hattie and Slim’s son. He is named after Slim’s
tells her stories about her father, promising that they’ll travel to brother, who was lynched back in the United States,. This
Ethiopia one day to find him, and she reminds Grace to be namesake conflicts with Sonny’s desire to distance himself
proud of her Ethiopian identity. Daisy’s determination to make from his racial identity. Sonny, like his sister Ada Mae, suffers
sure her daughter grows up proud of her racial identity stands racist bullying growing up in a small English village. Eventually,
in stark contrast to the shame that Ada Mae and Sonny will feel Sonny internalizes this racism and hates being Black. He and
generations later. When Daisy’s father finds out she is Ada Mae both distance themselves from their father,
pregnant, he orders her to give the baby up, but she refuses embarrassed to be seen with him in town, which reveals how
and instead moves out on her own. She and baby Grace live in a white supremacy can destroy family relationships. When Sonny
tenement with another single mother and her child, and she is 17 and Ada is 16, they leave home for London, swearing
works long hours at a factory. Daisy dreams of a better life for never to return to life at Greenfields. Sonny spends his like
herself and her daughter, but before she can make those working as a miner. He marries a white woman, and the family
dreams come true, she falls ill with tuberculosis and is forcibly becomes whiter with each passing generation, demonstrating
removed to a sanitorium where she succumbs to the disease. how internalized racism can erase a person’s racial and cultural
Slim Jackson – Slim is Hattie’s husband and Ada Mae and identities.
Sonny’s father. Slim is an African American man from Georgia. Wolde – Wolde is Grace’s father, though she never knew him.
When Slim and Hattie marry, he’s happy to leave the United An Ethiopian seaman, Wolde met Grace’s mother, Daisy, when
States behind for good, finding that people respect him more in he was stopped over in England. Before he departs, he
England. Slim comes from a family of sharecroppers, so he is promises Grace—who, unbeknownst to Grace and Wolde, is
excited that marrying Hattie means he’ll finally be a landowner pregnant with their child–that he’ll return for her but never
after his ancestors were denied their forty acres and a mule. does. Wolde’s absence haunts Grace for her entire life,
When Slim is outraged after he and Hattie discover that highlighting the impact that missing fathers have on their
Captain Linnaeus Rydendale, Hattie’s ancestor who founded children.
Greenfields, was a slave runner, Hattie calms him down by Joseph Ry
Rydendale
dendale – Joseph Rydendale is Grace’s husband and
suggesting that his co-ownership is a form of reparations that Hattie’s father. Joseph is descended from Captain Linnaeus
he and his family deserve. When Ada Mae and Sonny come Rydendale, a slave runner who used his wealth to found
home crying after their white classmates bully them, Slim has Greenfields. Although Joseph falls in love with Grace at a time
little sympathy. Instead, he tells them horror stories from his when society intensely scrutinized interracial relationships, he
youth living in a segregated America, where his brother was objectifies and exoticizes Grace’s Ethiopian identity, revealing

the complexities and inequalities of interracial relationships. Georgie – Georgie is Amma’s friend. Georgie struggles with
When he and Grace lose a series of children shortly after birth, substance abuse and dating. When he dies, likely by suicide,
he has little sympathy for her despite how clearly devastated Amma feels guilty.
she is. He forces her to try for another child without giving her Curwen – Curwen is Sylvester’s partner.
time to physically and emotionally heal because he is so
preoccupied with having a son who will inherit the family farm. Kenn
ennyy – Kenny is Roland’s partner.
Joseph’s treatment of Grace reveals how men use women to Moses – Moses is Bummi’s father who died while illegally
achieve and perpetuate their own patriarchal goals. refining oil in the Niger Delta. His family disowns Bummi and
Captain Linnaeus RyRydendale
dendale –Captain Linnaeus Rydendale is her mother, Iyatunde, after his death.
the founder of Greenfields and one of Hattie’s ancestors. He Aunty Ekio – Aunty Ekio is Bummi’s distant cousin who takes
was a slave runner, a fact that Hattie’s father evidently wanted her in after Iyatunde dies. She is a wealthy, mean, and
to keep this a secret from her. Rydendale was married to a demanding woman who makes Bummi work hard as her house-
woman named Eudoré, whom he met while on business in servant in exchange for housing and education.
Jamaica. Years later, Slim reveals his suspicion that Eudoré was Bishop Ader
Aderami
ami Obi – Bishop Aderami Obi is the bishop of
Black. Bummi’s church who gives her a cash loan to start her cleaning
Xaanan – Xaanan is Waris’s mother. She’s a Somali immigrant business in exchange for sex.
who fled to London at the outset of the Somali civil war. She Sister Omofe – Sister Omofe is one of the women who works
splits her time between teaching martial arts and working at a for Bummi at her cleaning company. They become close friends
refuge for Muslim women. She trained her children in martial and eventually share a passionate, secret love affair. Once
arts, advising them to be warriors and not let anyone take pity Bummi ends things, Sister Omofe starts dating another woman
on them for who they are. from church, leaving Bummi jealous.
Kofi – Kofi is a Ghanian man who worked for Bummi’s cleaning
MINOR CHARACTERS company and eventually becomes her long-term boyfriend.
Eudoré – Eudoré is Captain Linnaeus Rydendale’s wife who Aunty Angie – Angie is LaTisha’s aunt who moves in to help
was rumored to be Spanish. She’s the daughter of merchant Pauline after Glenmore abandons the family.
Rydendale conducted business with in Jamaica. When Slim
Jason Jones – Jason is LaTisha’s 12-year-old son.
sees a picture of Eudoré decades later, he tells Hattie that he’s
certain she was Black, and Hattie thinks he might be right. Jantelle Jones – Jantelle is LaTisha’s 11-year-old daughter.
La
Lavverne – Laverne is Dominique’s wife. A fellow survivor of Dwight – Dwight is the father of LaTisha’s first child, Jason.
domestic abuse, they met at a support group. They live in Los Mark – Mark is the father of LaTisha’s second child, Jantelle.
Angeles and parent their adopted twins.
Rachel – Rachel is Shirley and Lennox’s daughter and
Gaia – Gaia is the woman who owns the Spirit Moon women’s Winsome’s granddaughter who, to her delight, takes interest in
commune where Dominque lives with Nzinga when they first her life story.
move to the U.S. Gaia ultimately helps Dominique escape the
Madison – Madison is Rachel’s daughter, Shirley’s
commune and Nzinga’s abuse.
granddaughter, and Winsome’s great-granddaughter.
Cecilia – Cecilia is Dominique’s mother; she’s a Guyanese
Karen – Karen is Shirley and Lennox’s daughter and Winsome’s
immigrant.
granddaughter.
Wintle
Wintleyy – Wintley is Dominique’s father; he’s an Indo-
Ton
onyy – Tony is Shirley’s brother and Winsome and Clovis’s son.
Guyanese immigrant.
Errol – Errol is Shirley’s brother and Winsome and Clovis’s son.
Dolores – Dolores is Amma’s partner of seven years. They are
in a polyamorous triad with Jackie. Dolores is white and a Adam – Adam is Penelope’s son who moves to Texas after
graphic designer. graduating from college. He never visits his mother. His father,
Giles, is his favorite parent, because Giles paid for all his
Jackie – Jackie is Amma’s partner of three years. They are in a
university expenses.
polyamorous triad with Dolores. She is white and an
occupational therapist. Mark – Mark is Morgan’s brother and Hattie’s great-grandson.
Mabel, Olivine, Katrina, and Lakshmi – Mabel, Olivine, Katrina, Edwin – Edwin is Penelope’s father and Margaret’s wife. Edwin
and Lakshmi are Amma’s close group of friends. Amma was a surveyor born in England; he lived his life according to a
criticizes them for each having sold out in their own ways as strict and predictable routine.
they entered middle-age. Jerem
Jeremyy Sanders – Jeremy is Penelope’s partner later in life.
Penelope ignores Jeremy’s flaws, namely his sexism, to keep the

peace and enjoy their life together. escape the racism that traumatized them in childhood.
Great Aunt Myrtle Lennox's great aunt, who lives in Harlem. Members of successive generations—like Yazz and Morgan—
His parents send him to live with Aunt Myrtle while they get have the benefit of living in an England that is more diverse
themselves establishes in the U.K. Aunt Myrtle stresses to than ever, but they must also contend with the right-wing
Lennox that school and knowledge are the keys to building a reactionaries who want to halt diversification. Through this
better life, which is a lesson that he internalizes. chorus of stories, Evaristo’s novel reveals that for members of
the diaspora, each successive generation reconfigures and
reshapes identity, resulting in losses and conflicts but also new
THEMES possibilities.
In LitCharts literature guides, each theme gets its own color- LOVE, SEXUALITY, AND RACE
coded icon. These icons make it easy to track where the themes
occur most prominently throughout the work. If you don't have Love and sexuality run through the heart of the 12
a color printer, you can still use the icons to track themes in narratives that make up Girl, Woman, Other, and
black and white. each of the women’s stories explores the myriad
ways that love intersects with racial and ethnic identity. The
pressure to fall in love with someone from one’s own racial or
DIASPORA, CULTURE, AND IDENTITY ethnic group is present in many of the women’s lives. Carole’s
Girl, Woman, Other features 12 women’s voices mother, Bummi, is devastated when her daughter falls in love
from the African diaspora. The women trace their with a white, English man instead of a Nigerian. For Bummi, this
ancestry back to different countries—Ghana, decision threatens to further erode Carole’s Nigerian identity,
Nigeria, Barbados, Malawi, Ethiopia—and span the first, second, which Carole has already suppressed in order to
and successive generations of immigrants. The first generation assimilate—the only clear path Carole saw to achieve success in
of immigrants, directly tied to their homeland, bring their home a discriminatory English society. Amma is a radical, activist
cultures with them to the U.K. and fight to maintain them as lesbian who is proud of her “multicultural hoedom,” but ends up
they struggle to survive in a society that is openly hostile and with two white women life partners. Dominique always dated
discriminatory. For Amma’s father Kwabena, that means blondes in her 20s, which a girlfriend later suggests is a product
maintaining his radical, political identity. For Bummi, it means of her internalized racism. Falling in love with someone white
dressing in traditional Nigerian clothes, eating Nigerian food, also means facing those lovers’ racist families. Carole’s
and expecting her daughter to marry a Nigerian man. For husband, Freddy, is excited to see his parents’ reaction when he
Winsome, it means finding solace in a man who shares similar brings home a Black woman, as if she’s a token he’s entitled to
roots. The first generation wants to pass their cultural use to make a political statement to his family. When Julie,
identities down to their second-generation children born in descended from an Ethiopian great-grandfather and African
England, but whiteness and the pressure to assimilate threaten American grandfather, marries a man from Malawi, her family is
those cultural identities. angry with her for “ruining” the family line which becomes
The second generation straddles the middle ground between “whiter with every generation.” This desire itself is one rooted
their parents’ homelands and their native-born England. They in their internalized racism, born of the traumas of growing up
are torn between their parents’ expectations that they adhere amidst the racism of the English countryside. Almost all the
to the cultural norms of a homeland that is effectively foreign women the book features have experienced colorism and have
to them, while at the same time being rejected by a white- either been sexually objectified or ignored because of their
supremacist English society that views them as foreigners race. In this way, the characters’ stories highlight the
because of their racial and ethnic identities. Amma rails against relationship between love, sexuality, and racial and cultural
her father who, despite his progressivism, has internalized identities, as well as how living in a racist, Western society
sexist ideologies. The feminist identity that Amma has complicates interracial love and desire.
cultivated in her native country, England, becomes a cultural
divide between her and her father. Carole rejects her Nigerian HOME AND COMMUNITY
roots because assimilation into the white middle-class is, for The women who make up the cast of Girl, Woman,
her, the only clear path to financial and material stability. Other are all, in their own ways, in search of home
Though Grace loses her Ethiopian identity with her father, her
and community. Each of the characters struggles to
mother, a white woman, fights to keep that identity alive for her
carve out a place for themselves within an often hostile and
through stories and by instilling in Grace a deep sense of racial
exclusionary English society. The first-generation
pride. Eventually, however, Grace’s descendants will abandon
immigrants—like Bummi, Winsome, and Amma’s father
their Black identities entirely, choosing to pass as white to
Kwabena—mourn the loss of the home they’ve been forced to

leave behind while they struggle to survive in a new place that the marginalized. At the same time, they look down on those
will never feel fully like home. The second-generation like Carole, who take a more mainstream approach to social
immigrant characters born in England are disconnected from change, without recognizing the different social factors that led
their parents’ homelands, but their racial and ethnic identities Carole down this path. Carole’s class background (she grew up
cause their communities in their native England to treat them with a poor, single, immigrant mother in a struggling
as outsiders, as well. Tired of dealing with the overt and covert community) is different than Amma’s upbringing, which
racism embedded in the mainstream theater world, Amma and afforded her more class privilege and exposed her to radical
Dominique create a refuge for themselves and other women of ideas.
color when they found The Bush Woman Theatre Company for Yazz provides another example when she plays what writer and
women of color in the arts. Carole spends her childhood social commentator Roxane Gay calls “the privilege Olympics.”
desperate to escape her low-income community where cycles She’s constantly ranking her friends from most to least
of violence, addiction, and broken families make upward oppressed. She not only fails to see the ways in which different
mobility a rare opportunity. She’s forced to leave behind her factors, such as race, gender, class, sexuality, intersect to
mother and her friends like LaTisha to make a new home within complicate the simple picture she tries to paint, but she also
white, middle-class English society. Hattie’s sense of home is contradicts her own professed social beliefs by putting Waris,
deeply rooted in the land that her family has stewarded for two who she sees as her “most oppressed” friend, on a pedestal that
centuries, but that legacy contains secrets that will complicate victimizes her in just the way that Waris has asked Yazz not to.
her firm sense of home. Roxane Gay’s criticism of the way we talk about oppression and
Finally, the third generation represents new possibilities. They difference runs throughout Evaristo’s novel. Courtney
are most at home in England, but they still face similar paraphrases Gay’s claim in her book Bad Feminist that “we
struggles, especially as renewed right-wing movements should be able to say, ‘This is my truth,’ and have that truth
threaten the progress their parents’ generation made. Yazz stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the
finds solace in two other brown girls on the mostly white impression that multiple truths cannot coexist.” Each chapter of
Oxford campus, and Morgan finds a home in the trans Girl, Woman, Other contains those hundreds of “clamoring
community. On a meta level, the characters look for community voices” that assert themselves while tearing down others.
in stories. Amma’s play—like the book itself—is a story that Amma’s play, which is only one truth and one story about Black
brings these disparate women together. Even though a single women, brings the characters together with all their
play can’t fully represent or speak for all the women, they sit differences, but where those difference intersect and connect.
together in the audience as witnesses to Amma’s The after-party is a space where all their truths exist
groundbreaking moment that shatters barriers enforced by a simultaneously and thus represents Evaristo’s assertion that
white-supremacist society. Ultimately, the story ends with a the future must be one where individuals come together to
literal homecoming between Hattie and her long-lost daughter acknowledge that all oppression is intersectional.
Penelope that reinforces Evaristo’s overall message that
though home and community are tenuous and ever-changing, RADICAL VS. REFORMIST SOCIAL
affected by loss and sacrifice, people can also find and
MOVEMENTS
(re)construct home and community in unexpected places.
All of the characters featured in Girl, Woman, Other
are committed to making social change, but each
CONTRADICTION, COMPLEXITY, AND
varies in their approach. Broadly, the characters fall into two
INTERSECTIONALITY opposing attitudes. On the one hand are those who want to
Girl, Woman, Other is a deeply complex novel with work within systems, believing that reforming the societal
both direct and subtle connections at every turn. structures that already exist is the clearest path toward
The characters are related in intricate ways that are often progress. On the other hand are the radicals who believe that
unknown to the characters themselves and to readers, who dismantling society’s broken systems and creating something
only gradually discover the extent of these connections as the new in their place is the only path to real change. What the
novel unfolds. In this way, the structure of Evaristo’s novel characters from both sides of this spectrum have in common is
underlies one of its central messages about the intersectional their judgment and scorn for those on the other side.
nature of human lives and social movements. Each character is Amma and her friends like Dominique and Sylvester are all
strong and assured in their beliefs, often asserting that their radicals in their early 20s. Although Amma scorns her friends
view of the world is the only correct one. Perhaps because of who became less revolutionary as they settled into comfortable
these uncompromising beliefs, each character contradicts lives in middle age, her decision to take her play to the National
themselves at every turn. For example, Amma and her group of Theatre, a revered social institution, is an act aligned with
radical friends profess a commitment to changing the world for reformist values. Her play is supposed to make change from

within, and it does. Sylvester, still committed to fighting from opting to reform the system from within rather than disrupt the
outside of institutions, chastises her for “selling out” and Amma system as outsiders. Amma’s latest play shatters the glass
starts to see his stubborn commitment to the revolutionary as ceiling that kept women of color off the National Theatre’s
immature. In fact, as the characters age, more and more of esteemed stage and reveals a National Theatre that is slowly
them abandon the radical ideologies that defined their 20s in starting to diversify and become less exclusionary. In her new
exchange for a more conservative approach. Amma is one of relationship to the National Theatre, Amma is straddling the
the last holdouts of her generation, and as she starts to adopt a middle ground. While premiering her play at the National
reformist approach, the next generation—which includes her Theatre makes Amma a lawful reformer, bringing subversive
daughter Yazz and Yazz’s peers, like Morgan—now carries the ideas to the National Theatre allows her to sustain her role as a
torch of radicalism and disparages its elders for being ignorant radical.
and out of touch. Characters like Roland, Carole, Shirley, and Each of the novel’s main characters falls in their own place
LaTisha all work within the system from the start. Differences along the spectrum of radical versus reform. The National is the
in class, upbringing, and opportunities each play a role in their bridge that connects these wildly different characters and their
decisions to work as reformers. different approaches to creating systemic change and, as such,
What each character fails to recognize is what Slim, Hattie’s it symbolizes how reformers and radicals play equally vital roles
husband from Georgia, knows to be true. He admires both in inspiring change and seeking social justice. Amma and
Malcolm X, who takes a radical approach, and Martin Luther Dominique’s work from outside the mainstream theater world,
King Jr., who takes a more reformist approach. He understands which generated buzz and asserted a place for women of color
that both approaches are critical to the movement at a time in English culture and society, helps make possible the
when many felt compelled to take sides. Through characters’ monumental moment of reform that is Amma’s premiere at the
mutual criticisms and Slim’s broad-minded insight, Girl, Woman, National Theatre. At the same time, characters like Roland and
Other highlights the reality that social movements are as varied Carole make change from within existing institutions, ascending
as the people within them, and that although this may seed the ranks and infiltrating historically white, male institutions.
division and derision, everyone plays a critical role in achieving Throughout the novel, the radicals and the reformers criticize
progress and change. Furthermore, social movements are most and dismiss one another, but through their final convergence at
effective when their advocates come together to defeat a the National (to witness the premiere of Amma’s play), the
common oppressor rather than succumb to internal judgment novel highlights that both sides have their role to play in social
and scorn. change, and that neither path is more noble or worthy than the
other.
SYMBOLS
THE GREENFIELDS FARMHOUSE
Symbols appear in teal text throughout the Summary and The Greenfields Farmhouse symbolizes land,
Analysis sections of this LitChart. legacy, and power. The Greenfields Farmhouse is a
powerful source of empowerment, identity, and legacy for
THE NATIONAL THEATRE Hattie. It’s kept her young, powerful, and independent even in
her later years, illustrating the physical benefits of privilege of
The National Theatre symbolizes the debate over land ownership. It’s a place where she, a Black woman, has
whether lawful reform or radical change is the best carved out power within a white, patriarchal English society as
path to achieving social justice. The National Theatre represented by the predominately white village where her
represents the historically white-supremacist, patriarchal farmhouse sits. Hattie’s husband Slim, an African American man
foundation and culture of English society. For years, women like from Georgia, emphasizes the importance of land ownership
Amma and Dominique were shut out from that world. When when he recounts his family’s experience as sharecroppers in
the pair were first getting their start in the arts, the mainstream the wake of the broken promise of 40 acres and a mule that was
theater world typecast them into demeaning and stereotypical meant to be a financial reparation in a post-slavery society. His
roles. These injustices forced them to the margins where they co-ownership of the farm is therefore a significant and exciting
formed their Bush Women Theater Company, which centered moment for him. When Hattie and Slim eventually discover that
the stories and voices of women of color and therefore was the the farm was built with blood money from her ancestors’
antithesis of the National Theater. As outsiders of the involvement in the slave trade, Slim is outraged. Hattie is too,
mainstream theater world, Amma and Dominique stormed the but she also sees their co-ownership of the farm as a
balcony of the National to protest the institution and the white, roundabout sort of reparations. Hattie’s deep love for the farm
patriarchal society it represents. By middle age, however, and all it represents is why she is intent on honoring her
Amma and her formerly radical friends shift their approach, ancestors’ wishes that it stay in the family, and it’s also why she

chooses Morgan as her heir. Hattie’s own children married into
white families. Leaving the farm to Morgan and their partner, exclusive spaces. In Amma’s case, this invitation comes from
Bibi, not only keeps the farm in Black hands, but it also a reformer, the female artistic director who fought to be the
symbolically allows Hattie to pass down the empowerment of first in that previously male-dominated position at the
land ownership to future generations of Black people. What’s National. In other words, if that woman hadn’t made the
more, Hattie suggests that Morgan and Bibi turn the farm into decision to work as a reformer within society, then Amma
a refuge for the transgender community, which means the land may have never been given the chance to put her radical
would continue to serve as a site of empowerment those play on stage at the National. This highlights how both
pushed to the margins by a still patriarchal and white- reformers and radicals depend on each other, and each play
supremacist England. Ultimately, Hattie’s decision about the their own role in social change, counter to prevailing
future of Greenfields symbolizes her hope for a future when narratives that the two sides of this political debate are at
race, gender, and class no longer limit who owns land and has odds with each other.
access to the empowerment that comes with it. However, the mainstream dilutes and defangs the radical by
inviting it inside. Is a radical play still radical when it’s
accepted by and put on the stage of a historically white-
QUO
QUOTES
TES supremacist, patriarchal institution like the National? Amma
struggles with an internal identity conflict born of this
Note: all page numbers for the quotes below refer to the Grove
question. She worries that she’s selling out and is reluctant
Press edition of Girl, Woman, Other published in 2019.
to surrender her radical identity.
Chapter 1: Amma Quotes

Amma then spent decades on the fringe, a renegade look at it this way, Amma, she says, your father was born
lobbing hand grenades at the establishment that excluded her male in Ghana in the 1920s whereas you were born
until the mainstream began to absorb what was once radical female in London in the 1960s
and she found herself hopeful of enjoying it and your point is?
which only happened when the first female artistic director you really can’t expect him to ‘get you,’ as you put it
assumed the helm of the National three years ago
I let her know she’s an apologist for the patriarchy and
after so long hearing a polite no from her predecessors, complicit in a system that oppresses all women
she says human beings are complex
Related Characters: Amma (speaker) I tell her not to patronize me
Related Themes:
Related Characters: Amma, Dominique (speaker),
Related Symbols: Kwabena
Page Number: 2 Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis Page Number: 11

Amma spent her life working to change society from the Explanation and Analysis
outside as a true radical. As opposed to reformers who
believe that they can create change from within pre-existing Although a radical like Amma, Dominique is more willing to
systems, radicals like Amma spend their lives throwing acknowledge and forgive people’s contradictions and
“grenades” at society’s institutions, aiming to figuratively complexities. Amma cannot forgive her father who,
blow them up and create entirely new systems in their although politically radical, lacks intersectional awareness
place. For Amma and other radicals, the world needs to be and perpetuates sexism that she sees so clearly at odds with
torn down and built up again in a new image. his professed beliefs in justice and equality.
Society has suddenly shifted in her lifetime, however, What Amma doesn’t realize, and what Dominique tries to
blurring the line between radicalism and reform. The show her, is her own hypocrisy and similar lack of
mainstream, represented by the National Theatre, is intersectional awareness. Amma refuses to acknowledge
starting to invite the radicals into its once intentionally the role that generational and cultural differences play in

this conflict between herself and her first-generation National Theatre. On the National’s stage Black women are
immigrant father. She fails to acknowledge how the traumas viewed through the eyes of white society. A bush woman on
he suffered upon being exiled from his native country mean stage at the National would be seen as “savage” and
he’s experienced a suffering beyond her comprehension. “uncivilized,” but on their stage the bush woman is a symbol
While Amma vehemently insists on seeing the world in of power and pride. The Bush Woman Theatre Company is
stark, uncompromising black and white, Dominique sees the by and for Black women and women of color. They will
grey area, the many potential places for political allyship amplify each other’s voices that the mainstream tries to
between a passionate father and his equally passionate silence. They will tell their own stories, stories that center
daughter. Dominique understands that only in coming their lives and experiences, rather than the stories told by
together would Kwabena and Amma be able to make their white people that intentionally leave them on the margins.
radical dreams for a more socially just future come true.
she surprised herself at the strength of her grief

they decided they needed to start their own theatre she then regretted never telling him she loved him, he was her
company to have careers as actors, because neither was father, a good man, of course she loved him, she knew that now
prepared to betray their politics to find jobs he was gone, he was a patriarch but her mother was right when
or shut up to keep them she said, he’s of his time and culture, Amma
it seemed the obvious way forward my father was devastated at having to fell Ghana so abruptly,
she eulogized at his memorial, attended by his elderly socialist
they scribbled ideas for names on hard toilet paper snaffled
comrades
from the loo
it must have been so traumatic, to lose his home, his family, his
Bush Women Theatre Company best captured their intentions
friends, his culture, his first language, and to come to a country
they would be a voice in theatre where there was silence that didn’t want him
black and Asian women’s stories would get out there once he had children, he wanted us educated in England and
they would create theatre on their own terms that was it
it became the company’s motto my father believed in the higher purpose of left-wing politics
and actively worked to make the world a better place
On Our Own Terms
she didn’t tell them she’d taken her father for granted and
or Not At All.
carried her blinkered, self-righteous perspective of him from
childhood through to his death, when in fact he’d done nothing
Related Characters: Amma (speaker), Dominique wrong except fail to live up to her feminist expectations of him
Related Themes:
Related Characters: Amma, Helen (speaker), Kwabena
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number: 14
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis
After facing repeated experiences of discrimination from
Amma only comes to accept the truth of Dominique’s advice
within the mainstream theater world, Amma and
when it is too late to repair her relationship with her father.
Dominique decide that they won’t compromise themselves
Only after Kwabena dies does Amma realize that his
or their politics to win acceptance into the mainstream.
political identity, which to her often felt overbearing and
Entering the mainstream would require assimilating into
suffocating, was his way of holding onto a piece of all that he
and deferring to white culture. It would mean accepting the
lost when he was forced to leave his home country.
subservient roles and dehumanizing narratives about Black
people that perpetuate racism and discrimination. Just as first-generation parents often have suffocating and
limiting expectations for their children, so too do second-
The Bush Woman Theatre Company is the opposite of the
generation children have impossible expectations for their
parents. Amma wanted Kwabena to be something that he

never fully could be, and the years spent fighting, Ultimately, Yazz’s good intentions in this scene function to
demanding that he live up to her standards, are years that victimize Waris, perpetuating stereotypical and
they lost. These were years that could have been spent disempowering narratives about marginalized groups, even
loving each other, but that were spent divided instead. though she herself has intersecting marginalized identities.
While generational differences commonly divide parents
and their children, that rupture is especially acute between
first-generation parents and their second-generation yes but I’m black, Courts, which makes me more oppressed
children living in white-supremacist, Western society.
than anyone who isn’t, except Waris who is the most
oppressed of all of them (although I don’t tell her that)
Chapter 1: Yazz Quotes in five categories: black, Muslim, female, poor, hijabbed
she’s the only one Yazz can’t tell to check her privilege
you’ve really suffered, Yazz says, I feel sorry for you, not in
a patronizing way, it’s empathy, actually Courtney replied that Roxane Gay warned against the idea of
playing ‘privilege Olympics’ and wrote in Bad Feminist that
I haven’t suffered, not really, my mother and grandmother
privilege is relative and contextual, and I agree, Yazz, I mean
suffered because they lost their loved ones and their homeland,
where does it all end? is Obama less privileged than a white
whereas my suffering is mainly in my head
hillbilly growing up in a trailer park with a junkie single mother
it’s not in your head when people deliberately barge into you and a jailbird father? Is a severely disabled person more
it is compared to half a million people who died in the Somali privileged than a Syrian asylum-seeker who’s been tortured?
civil war, I was born here and I’m going to succeed in this Roxane argues that we have to find a new discourse for
country, I can’t afford not to work my butt off, I know it’s going discussing inequality
to be tough when I get on the job market but you know what, Yazz doesn’t know what to say, when did Court read Roxane
Yazz? I’m not a victim, don’t ever treat me like a victim, my Gay – who’s amaaaazing?
mother didn’t raise me to be a victim.
was this a student outwitting the master moment?
#whitegirltrumpsblackgirl
Related Characters: Yazz, Waris (speaker), Xaanan
Related Themes: Related Characters: Yazz, Courtney (speaker), Waris
Page Number: 60 Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis Page Number: 66

Yazz’s comments to Waris highlight the shaky line between
empathy and pity. Yazz believes that acknowledging the
hardships that Waris has faced in her life due to her Yazz has an absolutist view of oppression and privilege. Yazz
multiple, intersecting marginalized identities is a form of ranks herself and her friends in order from who she
empathy. Despite her claim that she’s not pitying and perceives to be most and least oppressed. She turns
patronizing Waris, her words, “I feel sorry for you,” oppression and privilege into a competition. Those who are
contradict her assertion of empathy. While empathy is a way “most” oppressed in her view are held up as morally
of showing understanding and support, pity reinforces superior. This absolutism is problematic for two main
inferiority and can come off as condescending and even reasons.
insulting. For one, her insistence that Waris is most oppressed
Yazz’s words also highlight how good intentions can have victimizes her in the exact way that Waris has previously
negative impacts. Yazz thinks that acknowledging the asked her not to. The fact that Yazz doesn’t share this
sometimes difficult realities of Waris’s life makes her an ally; opinion with Waris indicates that she knows this opinion
however, couched in these good intentions are assumptions would upset Waris because it is loaded with pity.
that don’t reflect the reality of Waris’s lived experiences. The second problem with her uncompromising view of
Yazz assumes that Waris has suffered, and when Waris oppression is that she fails to recognize the true complexity
pushes back and articulates her own story, Yazz continues of intersectionality, which is what Courtney calls her out for.
to insist and impose her own narrative onto Waris. Courtney cites Roxane Gay, a Black scholar who

complicates simplistic understandings of privilege and Courtney boast about their racial dating preferences as
oppression. Gay asserts that creating hierarchies of proof that they aren’t racist, in effect turning their partners
oppression is useless, not only because it simplifies what is into props for their own benefit. Similarly, when she walks
ultimately a complex narrative, but because it distracts from alongside Courtney, Yazz becomes a prop that helps
the possibility of disparate groups uniting against the Courtney broadcast that she is a white person who accepts
systems that keep them oppressed in different ways. Black people.
Yazz is stunned that Courtney has read Roxane Gay, which Although Yazz isn’t even interested in these men on the
challenges her assumptions that she’s the expert on social street, on principle the situation bothers her because these
justice issues and that Courtney is completely clueless and men are ultimately perpetuating society’s narrative that
needs Yazz to rescue her from her ignorance. While, of Black women are undesirable. They’re reinforcing white
course, Courtney has revealed many of her problematic and beauty standards and narratives of white supremacy that
racist beliefs, Yazz’s condescending approach erases portray white women as the pinnacle of beauty and desire
Courtney’s own experiences of oppression as someone who above women of color, and especially Black women. Yazz is
grew up poor in a rural community and on a struggling farm. used to being admired by men, but when she walks
Yazz fails to see the potential for allyship with Courtney, alongside white friends she becomes invisible. Yazz has
which would be a more productive dialogue. experienced this erasure repeatedly, and contending with
these instances of racism leaves her feeling worn out.
Yazz noticed that those ‘buns’ reciprocated Courtney’s

attention, her creamy softness pouring ostentatiously Chapter 1: Dominique Quotes
over the top of her denim blouse Nzinga had suggested that her relationship history of
they stared at Courtney, not at Yazz, who wasn’t the one blonde girlfriends might be a sign of self-loathing; you have to
getting checked out as usual, and she usually got checked out a ask yourself if you’ve been brainwashed by the white beauty
lot ideal, sister, you have to work a lot harder on your black
feminist politics, you know
not that she’s interested in the kind of male who belts their
trousers underneath their bum Dominique wondered if she had a point, why did she go for
stereotypical blondes? Amma had teased her about it without
today it’s all about Courtney, who’s not even particularly hot judging her, she herself was a product of various mixtures and
and it’s like Yazz is invisible and her friend is an irresistible often had partners of all colors
goddess
in contrast, Nzinga had grown up in the segregated South,
a white girl walking with a black girl is always seen as black- although shouldn’t that make her pro-integration rather than
man-friendly against it?
Yazz has been here before with other white mates Dominique wondered if she really was still being brainwashed
it makes her feel so by white society, and whether she really was failing at the
jaded identity she most cherished – the black feminist one
Related Characters: Yazz (speaker), Courtney Related Characters: Dominique, Nzinga (speaker), Amma
Related Themes: Related Themes:
Page Number: 68 Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis Explanation and Analysis

This scene highlights the relationship between race, Nzinga challenges Dominique’s pattern of dating white
romantic desire, and sexuality. Courtney’s insistence that women, pointing out that it may be a byproduct of
she only dates Black men is a form of fetishization. Seeking internalized racism. In Western, predominantly white
out Black partners and being attracted to that piece of their countries like the U.K., white supremacy infiltrates beauty
identity above all else functions to erase their individuality and desire. White women are held up as the pinnacle of
and the many different qualities and personality traits that beauty, and features such as light skin, blond hair, blue eyes,
make them attractive and lovable. White people like

silky hair, and thin frames are upheld as the most desirable. Dominique’s experience with Nzinga deconstructs
Nzinga believes Dominique has internalized this white assumptions and stereotypes about domestic abuse.
supremacist beauty standard and that it’s led her to almost Society views both physical and domestic abuse as
exclusively pursue white partners. Even though Dominique something that heterosexual men assert against
is herself a Black woman who doesn’t fit the white beauty heterosexual women. While this may be most common,
standard, it has subconsciously influenced her romantic life. Dominique’s story highlights that abuse transcends gender
In a way she perpetuates the white beauty standard by and sexuality. There are abusive same-sex relationships, and
elevating white women above all others. women are capable of being abusers.
Amma and Nzinga have different views of Dominique’s Nzinga gaslights Dominique and isolates her, which are
dating history based on their own personal identities and common tactics of abuse. She paints herself as Dominique’s
experiences. For Amma, interracial relationships are normal savior, when in truth her abuse has left Dominique feeling
because both she and her mother are mixed-race. She completely removed from her own identity and the world
pursues partners indiscriminately, not worried about their around her. Dominique can’t think because her mind and
racial identities. So while she teases Dominique for her long body live permanently in flight or fight mode. She describes
history of white girlfriends, she doesn’t think it means that that her emotions and senses exist in a constant, heightened
Dominique doesn’t value herself and other Black women. state because she is forever anticipating the next physical or
On the other hand, Nzinga grew up in the segregated South, emotional blow from Nzinga.
and counter to what Dominique expects, that experience Dominique questions the contradictions and complexities of
has left her wary of integration. For Nzinga, resistance and Nzinga’s character. Although she is a self-proclaimed,
power come from sticking together and not siding with the radical Black feminist, she’s taken on the role of oppressor,
oppressors even on an individual and interpersonal level. functioning as the patriarchal, chauvinist abuser in
Nzinga’s comments in this passage are some of the first of Dominique’s life. Nzinga herself was abused as a child by
many that leave Dominique questioning herself and her her mother’s boyfriend. She learned abuse at a young age,
identity. and has subconsciously internalized that same chauvinist,
patriarchal dominance over women. Now she is an abuser
herself, which highlights how abuse becomes a vicious cycle
why did Nzinga think being in love with her meant she had passed down from one person to the next.
to give up her independence and submit completely?
wasn’t that being like a male chauvinist?
Chapter 2: Carole Quotes
Dominique felt like an altered version of herself after a while,
her mind foggy, emotions primal, senses heightened did me and Papa come to this country for a better life only
to see our daughter giving up on her opportunities and end up
she enjoyed the sex and affection – outside in the fields when
distributing paper hand towels for tips in nightclub toilets or
summer arrived, wantonly naked in the heat, unworried about
concert venues, as is the fate of too many of our
anyone coming across them, what Nzinga called Dominique’s
countrywomen?
sexual healing, as if she’d been suffering terribly when she met
her you must go back to this university in January and stop thinking
everybody hates you without giving them a chance, did you
Dominique let it pass
even ask them? did you go up to them and say, excuse me, do
she wanted to talk this through with friends, Amma most of all, you hate me?
or the women at Spirit Moon, she needed a sounding board, it
you must find the people who will want to be your friends even
wasn’t going to happen, Nzinga kept them at a distance, kicked
if they are all white people
up a fuss when Dominique made overtures of friendship
there is someone for everyone in this world
you must go back and fight the battles that are your British
Related Characters: Dominique, Nzinga (speaker), Amma
birthright, Carole, as a true Nigerian
Related Themes:
Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole
Page Number: 95 Williams, Augustine Williams

Carole amended herself to become not quite them, just a
little more like them
Related Themes:
she scraped off the concrete foundation plastered on to her
Page Number: 133-134 face, removed the giraffe-esque eyelashes that weighed down
her eyelids, ripped off the glued-on talons that made most daily
Explanation and Analysis activities difficult
Bummi’s speech to Carole highlights how first-generation such as getting dressed, picking things up, most food
immigrant parents often put their second-generation preparation and using toilet paper
children under immense pressure to succeed. This pressure
is fueled by a searing guilt. Bummi reminds Carole that she she ditched the weaves sewn into her scalp for months at a
and Augustine sacrificed themselves so that Carole would time, many months longer than advised because, having saved
have better opportunities in life. White supremacist, English up to wear the expensive black tresses of women from India or
society makes it exceedingly difficult for Nigerian women, Brazil, she wanted her money’s worth, even when her scalp
and Black women in general, to escape the fate of working festered underneath the stinky patch of cloth from which her
in underpaid and undervalued service jobs. Every first- fake hair flowed
generation immigrant parent wants their second- she felt freed when it was unstitched for the very last time, and
generation children to break that cycle. her scalp made contact with air.
Bummi acknowledges the complexities of Carole’s identity. She felt the deliciousness of warm water running directly over
As someone born in England she has every right to the elite it again without the intermediary of a man-made fabric
opportunities a place like Oxford provides. However, taking She then had her tight curls straightened, Marcus said he
advantage of those opportunities and assimilating into preferred her hair natural, she told him she’d never get a job if
white, English society in order to do so is a difficult battle. she did that
As someone born Black in England, that battle against
racism and discrimination is as much her birthright are
those opportunities to succeed. Bummi reminds her to Related Characters: Carole Williams (speaker)
show up as a true and strong Nigerian who won’t allow
Related Themes:
white people and white supremacist society to stop her
from claiming what is hers to have. Page Number: 137

Carole makes the decision to assimilate into white, English
culture, a decision that many immigrants and their second-
generation children end up making. However, the decision
to assimilate is not so much a choice as it is a survival tactic.
Assimilation presents itself as one of very few available
options for achieving financial and material stability as an
immigrant living in a white supremacist society.
Feeling like an outsider and imposter at Oxford, Carole
decides to make efforts to assimilate, but only “just a little”
as she doesn’t want to completely surrender her identity.
Carole’s physical transformation in this scene represents
the start of her assimilation. Carole changes her outward
appearance, shedding her “giraffe-esque eyelashes,” “glued-
on talons,” and her weave, which leaves her feeling “freed.”
On the one hand, Carole is removing these items that the
white people at Oxford might view as stereotypically
“Black” or “hood.” She wants to distance herself from her
past and the impoverished community she came from that
white people would likely dismiss as “ghetto.” On the other
hand, Carole’s word choice reveals that she’s happy to be
free of these accessories that were their own kind of mask

she wore to fit in with the girls she grew up with. Black, white English society will never fully accept Carole.
As soon as she removes her weave, she covers up her The more Carole assimilates, the further she drifts from her
natural hairstyle again by straightening it, knowing that mother. That distance is reflected in her change in language.
Black women are repeatedly discriminated against in the She goes from calling Bummi “mama” to the more British
workplace for wearing natural hairstyles. This, too, is a “mother.” Bummi demands that Carole never forget who her
sacrifice in the name of assimilation, one that her white mother is and where she comes from. She won’t let white-
boyfriend doesn’t comprehend as he’s used to having the supremacist society erase Carole’s Nigerian identity nor
freedom to be his authentic self. break their bond as mother and child.
Though she starts out intending to change “just a little,”
she’ll continue to peel back layers until she becomes almost
unrecognizable in Bummi’s eyes, creating a gulf of distance Bummi and Augustine agreed they were wrong to believe
between them. that in England, at least, working hard and dreaming big
was one step away from achieving it
Augustine joked he was acquiring a second doctorate in
Chapter 2: Bummi Quotes shortcuts, bottlenecks, one-way streets and dead ends
my point is that you are a Nigerian while transporting passengers who thought themselves far too
no matter how high and mighty you think you are superior to talk to him as an equal
no matter how English-English your future husband Bummi complained that people viewed her through what she
no matter how English-English you pretend yourself to be did (a cleaner) and not what she was (an educated woman)
what is more, if you address me as Mother ever again I will beat they did not know that curled up inside her was a parchment
you until you are dripping wet with blood and then I will hang certificate proclaiming her a graduate of the Department of
you upside down over the balcony with the washing to dry Mathematics, University of Ibadan
I be your mama just as she did not know that when she strode on to the
graduation podium in front of hundreds of people to receive
now and forever
her ribboned scroll, and shake hands with the Chancellor of the
never forget that, abi? University, that her first class degree from a Third World
country would mean nothing in her new country
Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole especially with her name and nationality attached to it
Williams
Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole
Related Themes:
Williams, Augustine Williams
Page Number: 158
Related Themes:
Page Number: 167
This interpersonal conflict between Carole and Bummi
reveals that when second-generation children of Explanation and Analysis
immigrants assimilate into the white-supremacist societies
Bummi and Augustine’s experience reveals how the
they were born into, two things can happen; they can lose
opportunities and success the West promises immigrants in
sight of themselves and also internalize a sense of
exchange for their hard work and sacrifice is quite often a
superiority over their first-generation parents that
myth.
threatens to destroy familial bonds.
Like many highly educated, first-generation immigrants,
Bummi hates that Carole has tried so hard to distance
Bummi and Augustine arrive in their new country ready to
herself from her Nigerian identity. She confronts Carole
find work that befits their qualifications, but their degrees
with a harsh reality: that she’ll never be “English-English”
are considered useless in white-supremacist society that
because “English-English” implies white. Carole has
dismisses the legitimacy of universities and professionals
surrendered so much of herself in order to assimilate into
from what they label as “underdeveloped” or “Third World”
white English culture, but Bummi knows that because she is
countries.

Not only does this rob Bummi and Augustine of a chance at as well as his mother’s standards for feminine beauty. They
financial stability and material comfort, but because their “accept” Carole because she has assimilated into white
personalities were intertwined with their academic culture, which they view as superior to Black culture. For
passions, it robs them of significant pieces of their identities, example, they are impressed by how “well-spoken” she is,
too. In the U.K., both lose their individuality and become one meaning that she speaks “standard” white English rather
among many immigrants of color that white people ignore, than Black vernacular English, the vernacular that Carole
mistreat, and expect will serve them in various capacities. In forced herself to stop speaking years earlier when she was
other words, when white people imagine a mathematician, at Oxford.
they don’t imagine a Black woman with a “foreign” name like As Carole’s partner, Freddy should confront his parents and
Bummi. challenge their racist thinking. Instead, he couches their
Soon after arriving in England, both Bummi and Augustine racism in euphemism, calling them “old-fashioned snobs”
realize this country will not be the home they hoped it rather than calling them out directly for their racism. This
would be. They quickly find themselves up against the myth leaves Carole to shoulder the burden of their racism as she
of meritocracy, and their best hope is that their second- sits with a fake smile on her face watching her in-laws
generation child, Carole, will have a shot at the success that condescend to her mother.
white supremacist society intentionally denies them. Mark and Pamela’s perception of Bummi, a Nigerian
immigrant, is shaped by their inaccurate perceptions of
Africa in general. Westerners often view Africa through a
Freddy arranged for Bummi to meet his parents in a singular lens of suffering and poverty. Freddy’s parents
London restaurant, which she was looking forward to impose this narrative onto Bummi, regarding her with pity
and assuming that she is uneducated. They make no effort
except he warned her that although they’d warmed to the idea
to get to know her. If they did, they’d find out she is a college
of Carole, once they saw how classy, well-spoken and
educated business-owner.
successful she was (most importantly for his mother, how slim
and pretty, too) Ultimately, this scene shows how people of color and their
families are often forced to contend with white people’s
they’re still old-fashioned snobs
unchecked racism and bias within the context of interracial
Freddy’s father, Mark, looked uncomfortable, said little at the relationships.
dinner, Carole sat there with a fake smile plastered on her face
the whole time
Pamela, his mother, smiled at Bummi as if she was a famine Chapter 2: LaTisha Quotes
victim, when she started explaining the meaning of hors
Losing her dad the way she did was something LaTisha
d’oeuvres to her, Freddy told her to stop it, Mommy, just stop it
never talked about; whenever people asked, she told them he’d
died of a heart attack
Related Characters: Bummi Williams (speaker), Carole it was easier than explaining what had happened, people
Williams, Freddy thinking there must be something wrong with her and her
family
Related Themes:
else why would he leave?
Page Number: 186 she ran wild, hated school, couldn’t concentrate, even Mummy
couldn’t control her and she was a social worker, I’m sending
you home to Jamaica where they’ll beat some sense into you,
This scene highlights how racism can infiltrate interracial LaTisha
relationships and complicate or even preclude efforts to
yeh, whatevs, I could do with a Caribbean holiday
merge extended families. After finally coming around to
Freddy, Bummi is excited to meet his parents, the people
who will now be hers and Carole’s extended family. Related Characters: LaTisha Jones (speaker), Bummi
Freddy doesn’t try to hide the fact that his parents were Williams, Shirley King, Glenmore Jones, Pauline Jones,
initially unhappy with his decision to be with Carole. He Sister Omofe
explains that they’d only come around once they saw that
Related Themes:
she fit their white, upper-class standards for “respectability”

Page Number: 199-200 Related Themes:

Page Number: 222
LaTisha’s story highlights how losing one’s home has
devastating effects both internally and externally. LaTisha’s Explanation and Analysis
home life was happy and stable before her dad abandoned When Shirley first starts teaching, she’s resoundingly
LaTisha, her mother, and her sister. His abandonment is successful. Just as she dreamed, she is reforming society
devasting and leaves her severely depressed. from within its preexisting institutions. She has an easy
On top of her own inner turmoil, her father’s abandonment rapport with the children, with many of whom she shares
changes how society views her family and by extension how both a common racial identity and identity as the second-
they view LaTisha. Society stereotypes and stigmatizes generation children of immigrants. Shirley is a success story
fatherless families, especially fatherless families of color. and role model for her students who see themselves in her
LaTisha’s teachers, like Shirley and Penelope, judge and and want to grow up and make their immigrant parents
scorn these “broken” families. This is why LaTisha lies about proud just as Shirley has. This connection helps her succeed
her father being dead. No one will judge or stereotype her and highlights the importance of representation within
for having a dad who died of a heart attack. Missing father society’s mainstream institutions.
figures become one more in a long list of perceived Shirley’s success simultaneously makes her hyper-visible to
“failures” that white-supremacist society holds against the white people around her. Her boss, thinking he’s
people of color, and especially Black people. Of course, complimenting her, says “she’s a credit to her people,” but
white supremacist society never stops to consider how the this compliment is underhanded because it simultaneously
oppressive conditions it has created are what breed turmoil puts down the rest of the Black community. He’s implying
within communities of color. that she stands out as an exception among Black people, for
LaTisha responds to these inner and external conflicts by whom white people have low expectations in general. This is
acting out. She becomes so unmanageable that not even her evident in the way her white colleagues talk about their
mother, who is a social worker, can handle her. Like many Black students who they write off as failures from the
first-generation parents overwhelmed by how their second- minute they walk through the school’s doors.
generation children are struggling, she threatens to send While a white person’s success is theirs alone, successful
LaTisha back to her home country (Bummi’s friend Sister Black people like Shirley are expected to represent their
Omofe actually follows through on this threat with her entire race. Shirley now works under the pressure to make
second-generation sons). LaTisha, who has never set foot in Black people look good in the eyes of white society, as if any
Jamaica, sees a return to her mother’s homeland as a one person can or should be expected to represent an
vacation, highlighting yet another divide between entire, wildly diverse community.
immigrant parents and their children.
when Shirley drove up to the school in the mornings

Chapter 3: Shirley Quotes
moments before the inmates charged up the Paupers’ Path to
Shirley destroy any sense of equilibrium
was praised by the headmaster, Mr. Waverly, as a natural its monstrous proportions settled in her stomach
teacher, with an easy rapport with the children, who goes above
and beyond the call of duty, achieves excellent exam results like concrete
with her exemplary teaching skill and who is a credit to her and as the eighties became history the nineties couldn’t wait to
people charge in and bring more problems than solutions
in her first annual job assessment more children at school coming from families struggling to cope
Shirley felt the pressure was now on to be a great teacher and more unemployment, poverty, addiction, domestic violence at
an ambassador home
for every black person in the world more kids with parents who were ‘inside,’ or should have been
more kids who needed free school meals
Related Characters: Shirley King (speaker) more kids who were on the Social Services register or radar
more kids who went feral – (she wasn’t an animal tamer)

Chapter 3: Winsome Quotes

Related Characters: Shirley King (speaker)
Shirley
Related Themes: who’s never satisfied with what she has: excellent health, cushy
job, hunky husband, lovely daughters and granddaughter, good
Page Number: 236-237 house and car, no debts, free luxury holiday in the tropics every
Explanation and Analysis year
Shirley, like many others who set out to reform society’s tough life Shirl
institutions from within, burns out when she realizes that compared to Winsome who spent her working life standing on
making change within one system, in this case public the open platform of a Routemaster bus
education, isn’t enough to make the sweeping societal bombarded with rain or snow or hailstones
changes that she once imagined she could.
climbing stairs a million times a day with a heavy ticket machine
When she started teaching, Shirley believed that education hanging from her neck and big money bag around her waist
alone could secure upward mobility for students of color that got heavier as the journey progressed giving her round
from working-class, immigrant families. This was an shoulders and back problems to this very day
assumption partially based on her own experience of being
having to deal with non-payers and under-payers who refused
a second-generation child of Caribbean immigrants whose
to get off de dam bus who cussed her for being a silly cow or a
academic success propelled her into a comfortable middle-
nig nog or a bloody foreigner
class adulthood.
She soon realizes, however, that she is one of the few who
managed to escape the web of social issues that intersect to Related Characters: Winsome Robinson (speaker), Shirley
keep the majority of kids like her trapped in a cycle of King
poverty and struggle. Kids can’t succeed at school when
Related Themes:
their lives are a struggle to survive in the face of poverty,
food scarcity, parental addiction or incarceration, and
Page Number: 251
abuse.
Although Shirley understands that these larger systemic Explanation and Analysis
issues are what cause her students to act out and perform Winsome highlights how first-generation immigrant parents
poorly in school, her burnout has led her to automatically often envy their children’s lives while simultaneously feeling
condemn her students to failure, calling them animals and like their children have taken their hard work and sacrifice
inmates. She now views her students through the same for granted.
stereotypical and dehumanizing lenses as the coworkers While the West perpetuates the myth that theirs is the land
she once despised, like Penelope. Shirley’s ideological of opportunities, where first-generation immigrants of all
change also highlights how people of color can end up backgrounds can come and achieve success and material
perpetuating white-supremacy and oppression. comfort through hard work, more often the best first-
generation immigrants can hope for is that this myth of
meritocracy will pan out for their children.
In Shirley’s case it does. Winsome worked a backbreaking
job and suffered racist abuse all so her children could have
better opportunities in life, so when Shirley complains
incessantly about her life Winsome feels hurt and
frustrated. Winsome dreamed of a life like Shirley’s when
she first set out for England. This conflict highlights a divide
between the first and second generations, born out of
second-generation children’s privileges afforded by their
parents’ hard work.

she herself is a grateful person
of the money they earned in the U.K.—through both their
grateful she had Barbados to return home to when her English
pensions and the sale of the home they worked hard to
friends had to stay over there and spend their old age worrying
buy—that they can afford their happy and materially stable
about the cost of heating and whether they’d survive a bad
retired life back home.
winter
Winsome is surrounded by other women who also returned
grateful that as soon as she stepped off the plane to walk into
home after years abroad. She’s bolstered by this community
the blast of heat, her arthritic joints stopped playing up
of women who share her Barbadian identity, something she
haven’t so much as muttered a word of protest since lacked in all her years in England. Their reading group is a
grateful that the sale of the house in London allowed them to space where they get to explore the intellectual part of
buy this one by the beach themselves that they had to sacrifice when they moved
grateful that she and Clovis, now in their eighties, have a abroad and gave themselves completely to securing a better
reasonable pension, and won’t have to worry about money for life for their children. It’s finally their time to enjoy the spoils
the rest of their loves so long as they stay parsimonious, which of their hard work and suffering.
is true of her generation anyways, who only buy what they
need, not what they want
Chapter 3: Penelope Quotes
you go into debt to buy a house, not a new dress
at first she’d enjoyed teaching the disadvantaged children
Winsome counts her blessings every day and thanks Jesus for
of the area whose parents had an inter-generational history of
bringing her home to a more comfortable life
paying taxes in this country, even though she knew most of
she thanks Jesus she made new friends with women who’d also them wouldn’t go on to great things
returned from America, Canada and Britain and asked her to
a supermarket till for the ones who were numerate, a typing
join their reading group
pool for those who were numerate and literate, further
she was honoured, she’d been a bus conductor, they didn’t mind education for those who could pass exams sufficiently well
she felt a sense of responsibility towards her own kind, and
Related Characters: Winsome Robinson (speaker), Shirley didn’t like it at all when the school’s demography began to
King change with the immigrants and their offspring pouring in
in the space of a decade the school went from predominately
Related Themes:
English children of the working classes to a multicultural zoo of
Page Number: 252-253 kids coming from countries where there weren’t even words
for please and thank you
Explanation and Analysis which explained a lot
While Winsome and Clovis’s hard work never earned them
the fulfilled life they may have dreamed of in England, it
Related Characters: Penelope Halifax/Barbara (speaker),
grants them the opportunity to return to their native
Shirley King
Barbados where they live a comfortable and peaceful life.
Their return to their homeland upends the myth that life in Related Themes:
an immigrant’s adopted country, especially when that
country is a Western one, will automatically and always be Page Number: 297-298
better than the one they left behind.
Winsome describes the hardships they left behind in Explanation and Analysis
England. On a larger scale, the harsh and unforgiving Like Shirley, Penelope felt motivated and excited to teach
winters they’ve escaped represent the coldness and vitriol her disadvantaged public-school students at the beginning
that white English people typically treated them with. Back of her career. She, too, wanted to reform society from
in Barbados, even Winsome’s body is imbued with new life within its existing institutions. Unlike Shirley, however, from
after decades spent working backbreaking jobs for low day one Penelope had low expectations for her students.
pay. Additionally, while Shirley wanted to help all her students,
At the same time, if Winsome and Clovis had never left and even helped bridge racial divides between the white
Barbados the comfortable life they’ve created for and Black students, Penelope is only interested in helping
themselves would not have been possible. It’s only because “her own kind.” She draws a harsh line between “us” and

“them,” and she fills that distance with hate and resentment. Penelope identifies as a fierce feminist. In the beginning of
Penelope is deeply racist, and that racism shows most in the her career, when the students and faculty at the school
way she talks about her students. She often compares them were predominately white, Penelope was the most
to animals, calling them “offspring” instead of children and progressive person in the building. When no one else would,
calling the school a zoo. Her words dehumanize them, which she stood up to the male teachers who oppressed and
makes it easier for her to continue to ignore, deride, and discriminated against the women in the workplace. When
mistreat them. She perpetuates conservative tropes that Shirley arrives with her own progressive agenda, Penelope
suggest immigrants don’t pay their taxes. Her assertion that feels threatened.
the students come from countries without “words for Penelope believes that younger women like Shirley should
please and thank you” plays into white supremacist beliefs be grateful and defer to her because of the progress she
that immigrants, and especially immigrants of color, come made for “all working women.” However, she doesn’t see
from “uncivilized” countries. how her racism contradicts this claim, and in fact holds back
Penelope highlights how racism shows up in efforts towards women of color like Shirley. Penelope is angry and offended
social change. Penelope’s racism prevents her from seeing when Shirley challenges her racist beliefs. She doesn’t see
the potential for the working class English and immigrants that her racism makes her an oppressor; she is more like the
to unite around their intersecting oppressions, and instead male teachers who think “they own the planet” than she
she gives up on social change altogether. would like to admit.
Ultimately, white feminists like Penelope claim they fight for
all women, when in reality they fear and oppress the “multi-
culti brigade” of racial justice advocates who threaten their
she loathed that feminism was on the descent, and the
white supremacy and white privilege.
vociferous multi-culti brigade was on the ascent, and felt
angry all the time, usually at the older boys who were
disrespectful and the bullish male teachers who still behaved as
if they owned the planet Chapter 4: Megan/Morgan Quotes
… Megan wondered aloud how she could put her gender-
free identity into practice when they were living in a gender-
Shirley was barely out of her teaching probation when she took
binary world, and that with so many definitions (sane and
a pot shot at Penelope at that staff meeting all those years ago
insane, she refrained from saying), the very idea of gender
– at the only woman in the school who dared stand up to the
might eventually lose any meaning, who can remember them
men
all? maybe that was the point, a completely gender-free world,
why didn’t Saint Shirley attack one of the male chauvinist pigs or was that a naïve utopian dream?
who pontificated ad infinitum instead of a strong woman who’d
Bibi replied that dreaming wasn’t naïve but essential for
brought petitions into work for both the Equal Pay Act and the
survival, dreaming was the equivalent of hoping on a large
Sex Discrimination Act, both of which were eventually passed
scale, utopias were an unachievable ideal by definition, and yeh,
into law
she really couldn’t see billions of people accepting the abolition
improving the situation for all working women of the idea of gender completely in her lifetime
she should be admired and respected by her female colleagues Megan said in which case demanding gender-neutral pronouns
for herself from people who’d no idea what she was going on
Related Characters: Penelope Halifax/Barbara (speaker), about also seemed utopian
Shirley King Bibi said it was a first step towards changing people’s minds,
and although yes, like all radical movements, there’d be much
Related Themes: resistance and Megan would have to be resilient
Page Number: 298-299

Related Characters: Megan/Morgan Malinga , Bibi
Explanation and Analysis (speaker)
Penelope’s anger towards Shirley and other racial justice
advocates highlights her lack of intersectional awareness Related Themes:
and demonstrates how white feminists exclude and oppress
Page Number: 326-327
women of color.

Explanation and Analysis Related Characters: Hattie “GG” Jackson , Slim Jackson
(speaker), Ada Mae , Sonny
Megan and Bibi debate and explore the challenges, and
sometimes impossibilities, of being a radical activist and Related Themes:
embracing a radical identity in a society not only intolerant
of, but actively against, radical change. Page Number: 355-356
Megan has come to accept that gender is a social construct,
and now she comes to the overwhelming but exciting
realization that something constructed can be This conflict between Hattie and Slim highlights how the
deconstructed. As she’s about to make her own, personal contradictions and complexities of colorism show up in
step towards deconstructing gender within herself by families. Hattie is mixed-race and is much lighter than Slim
choosing to use they/them pronouns, she simultaneously and their children. While Hattie wants to shield their
worries about the consequences of this decision. Bibi children from the horrifying realities of racism in Slim’s
doesn’t try to sugarcoat the reality that Megan will face stories, Slim knows that it’s impossible to shield Sonny and
resistance and rejection for her choice, and Megan wonders Ada Mae from how the world will treat them as darker-
if the choice is even worth it because changing people’s skinned people. He knows they can’t ignore history, because
perceptions of gender feels like a losing battle for an that violent history still lives on and affects them in the
unachievable utopian ideal. present.
Bibi teaches Megan that dreaming of a utopian ideal is not Slim calls Hattie out on her light-skinned privilege and tells
just what fuels radical activism but is what keeps people her that she must engage with racial issues in a new way
who are oppressed and on the margins of society alive and that she hasn’t had to before if she wants to be fully
fighting. In other words, dreaming itself is a radical act of supportive of her children.
survival and resistance. Bibi shows Megan that daring to be At the same time, Hattie calls Slim out for contradicting
who you are is a form of radical activism and is the place himself. When they first met, he was immediately attracted
from which all radical social change starts. Soon after, to and commented on her complexion. Subconsciously or
Megan begins to go by Morgan and to use they/them not, Slim was perpetuating white supremacist beauty
pronouns instead of she/her. standards that uphold the false, racist belief that whiter is
more beautiful.
Chapter 4: Hattie Quotes

Hattie asked him to tone it down with the stories, it was they both followed the news about the civil rights protests,
scaring their children and would make them hate themselves, Slim said the Negro needed Malcolm X and Martin Luther
he said they needed to toughen up and what did she know King
about it with her being high-yaller and living in the back of when they were assassinated within three years of each other
beyond?
he disappeared into the hills for a few days
you liked that I’m high-yaller, as you put it, so don’t you go using
it against me, Slim
Related Characters: Hattie “GG” Jackson , Slim Jackson
he said the Negro had reason to be angry, having spent four
(speaker)
hundred years in American enslaved, victimized and kept
downtrodden Related Themes:
it was a powder keg waiting to explode
she replied they were a million miles from America and it’s Page Number: 356
different here, Slim, not perfect but better Explanation and Analysis
he said his little brother Sonny was the children’s uncle and Slim understands a truth about activism that every other
they needed to know what happened to him and about the character throughout the novel fails to see: both the radical
history of a country that allowed him to be murdered, and it’s and the reformer are necessary for social progress. This
our duty to face up to racial issues, Hattie, because our children belief is couched in his assertion about the necessity of both
are darker than you and aren’t going to have it as easy Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., to the civil rights

movement. At the time, most Americans supported either Explanation and Analysis
Malcolm or Martin. Malcolm X was often demonized
because of his radical beliefs, charged speeches, and open This scene highlights how love and sexuality intersect with
condemnation of white people and white-supremacist race and racism and how that intersection looks different
American society. Martin, on the other hand, was more for Black men versus Black women. In predominately white
widely accepted because his beliefs were more palatable to Newcastle, Ada Mae struggled to find love, not only because
white people. she doesn’t fit the white supremacist beauty standards, but
because men didn’t want to take a Black girlfriend home to
However, Slim understands that both men were necessary their racist families who would disapprove of an interracial
for the movement. They each nudged the needle towards relationship. Because she’s overlooked and ignored, Ada
justice in their own ways, ultimately assisting each other in Mae ends up settling for the first man who shows interest in
service of similar goals. That both met the same fate and her, and even though Tommy turned out to be a decent
were assassinated speaks to the critical role each played in husband, racism still severely limited her possibilities for
the movement. They were both viewed as threats to the love.
status quo because they both activated and inspired so
much social change. Sonny is angered by Tommy’s comment that he loves Ada
Mae “in spite of her color” because he should love her for all
parts of herself and her identity, and that includes her racial
identity. Saying he loves her “in spite of her color” implies
Ada Mae married Tommy, the first man who asked, grateful that he sees her race as a negative quality that her other
anyone would qualities make up for.
she didn’t exactly have suitors lining up in Newcastle wanting to On the other hand, Sonny is incredibly desired by the white
proudly introduce their black girlfriend to their parents in the women in Newcastle who compare him to Johnny Mathis, a
nineteen-sixties popular mixed-race musician. Sonny’s race makes him
Tommy was on the ugly side, a face like a garden gnome, her exciting and exotic in a town where he is one of few men of
and Slim joked, none too bright, either color. Unlike Ada Mae, his race makes him desirable, but
Hattie suspected the lad didn’t have too many choices himself this, too, is problematic. His race becomes the first and
foremost reason that women are attracted to him, which
a coalminer from young, he was apprenticed as a welder when erases all the other qualities that make him who he is. Sonny
the mines were shut down still has to contend with racist in-laws who disown their
he proved to be a good husband and really did love Ada Mae, in daughter rather than accept her interracial relationship.
spite of her colour
as he told Hattie and Slim when he came to ask for her hand
lucky that Slim didn’t lay him out after Joseph died, Slim broke open an old library cabinet
there and then when he couldn’t find the keys, said that as the man of the
house he needed to know what was in it
Sonny’s experience was somewhat different, according to Ada
Mae who reported back that women queued up round the he found old ledgers that recorded the captain’s lucrative
block for him business as a slave runner, exchanging slaves from Africa for
sugar in the West Indies
they thought he was the next best thing to dating Johnny
Mathis came charging like a lunatic into the kitchen where she was
cooking and had a go at her for keeping such a wicked family
he married Janet, a barmaid, whose parents objected secret from him
and told her to choose she didn’t know, she told him, was as upset as he was, the
cabinet had been locked her entire life, her father told her
Related Characters: Hattie “GG” Jackson (speaker), Slim important documents were inside and never go near it
Jackson , Ada Mae , Sonny she calmed Slim down, they talked it through
Related Themes: it’s not me or my Pa who’s personally responsible, Slim, she said,
trying to mollify her husband, no you co-own the spoils with me
Page Number: 359-360 she wrapped her long arms around his waist from behind
it’s come full circle, hasn’t it?

Related Characters: Hattie “GG” Jackson , Slim Jackson Related Characters: Grace , Joseph Rydendale (speaker)
(speaker), Megan/Morgan Malinga , Joseph Rydendale ,
Captain Linnaeus Rydendale Related Themes:
Related Themes: Page Number: 393-394

Related Symbols:
The Dr. Livingstone reference imbues this scene with an
Page Number: 368 additional layer of meaning. Dr. Livingstone was a Scottish
physician and Christian missionary who is most known for
Explanation and Analysis his expeditions into Africa. He was obsessed with
The truth about Greenfields’ founding reveals how discovering the sources of the Nile River and hoped that his
historical atrocities live on in the present and complicate discovery would make him famous so the world would pay
understandings of home, family, and individual identity. attention to his advocacy against the slave trade. Dr.
Livingstone’s abolitionism is complicated by his working
Slim is horrified to learn that the land he and Hattie live and
with slave traders at points during his expeditions. Despite
work on was built using blood money earned in the same
his good intentions, Livingston was a colonizer whose
slave trade that devastated his family. Although Hattie
missionary work threatened indigenous cultures in the
didn’t deceive him, because she herself didn’t know this
communities he visited across the continent. Livingstone
family secret, their discussion still poses the question of
was ultimately a white man who thought he knew what was
culpability and responsibility. Hattie and her father aren’t
best for Africa when he set out to implement his Vision for
personally responsible for their ancestor’s actions, but
Africa plan.
they’ve reaped the benefits and privileges of those actions
in the form of land, a significant source and foundation of From the first moment that Joseph spotted Grace on the
wealth and stability. On the other hand, Joseph married a street, he exoticized her and her Blackness. In their sex life,
mixed-race woman and Hattie, his mixed-race child, that exoticizing is intertwined with Joseph’s role-playing of
inherited the land and its wealth. Now Hattie is with Slim, Dr. Livingstone that reveals how he views Grace as
and as she sees it, their co-ownership of the farm is a form something to be conquered, just as Livingstone conquered
of long-awaited justice. The land has been returned to the and colonized the African continent. This dominant-
hands of those who suffered for it, and in a sense, Hattie submissive fantasy reveals the complexities of interracial
sees it as a long overdue reparation that makes up for the relationships, and the way that the white partner’s
forty-acres and a mule Slim’s family was promised but never unexamined biases, stereotypes, and racism shows up in
given. their relationships.
Hattie is born of contradictions, and there is no clear or
easy way to resolve these contradictions that coexist within
her. Hattie’s choice to leave Greenfields to Morgan is her
way of trying to make peace with the farm’s legacy. Her
father wanted it to stay in the family, and she knows that if
she leaves it to her own children they’ll sell it to wealthy,
white developers. By leaving Greenfields to Morgan the
farm stays both in the family and in Black hands.
Chapter 4: Grace Quotes

nights
they made love with the gas lamp dimmed
she was his expedition into Africa, he said, he was Dr
Livingstone sailing downriver in Africa to discover her at the
source of the Nile
Abyssinia, she corrected him
whatever you say, Gracie

Chapter 5: The After-party Quotes

story as she might have hoped when she was initially so
it was so odd seeing a stage full of black women tonight, all excited to see so many women who looked like her on a
of them as dark or darker than her, a first, although rather than stage so significant. Carole finds herself wishing that the
feel validated, she felt slightly embarrassed play was about a Black woman reformer like her, rather than
if only the play was about the first black woman prime minister a radical play about Black lesbian love.
of Britain, or a Nobel prize-winner for science, or a self-made Another reason why she feels uncomfortable is because she
billionaire, someone who represented legitimate success at the knows that white audiences will associate her with the play
highest levels, instead of lesbian warriors strutting around and simply because she is Black. In the lobby at the intermission,
falling for each other Carole already sees that white people are looking at her
during the interval at the bar she noticed a few members of the kindlier than before, but their kindness is undermined by
white audience looking at her different from when they’d all the fact that they are erasing Carole’s individual identity by
arrived in the lobby earlier, much more friendly, as if she was assuming that all Black women must love and identify with
somehow reflected in the play they were watching and because this play.
they approved of the play, they approved of her Finally, Carole experiences something similar from the
there were also more black women in the audience than she’d other Black women in the audience, too. They keep giving
seen at any other play at the National her the “sisterhood nod,” as if the play and what its presence
at the interval she studied them with their extravagant head- in The National represents bonds them together in new
ties, chunky earrings the size of African sculptures, voodoo- ways, but Carole doesn’t feel that connection, highlighting
type necklaces of beads, bones, leather pouches containing the limits of shared group identity.
spells (probably), metal bangles as thick as wrist weights, silver
rings so large their wingspan spread over several fingers
Epilogue Quotes
she kept getting the black sisterhood nod, as if the play
somehow connected them together this metal-haired wild creature from the bush with the
piercingly feral eyes
Related Characters: Carole Williams (speaker) is her mother

this is she
Related Themes: this is her
who cares about her colour? why on earth did Penelope ever
Related Symbols:
think it mattered?
Page Number: 418-419 in this moment she’s feeling something so pure and primal it’s
overwhelming
they are mother and daughter and their whole sense of
Carole’s discomfort with Amma’s play and the significance themselves is recalibrating
of its premier at The National Theatre highlights how the
her mother is now close enough to touch
theater represents a bridging of the radical and reformist
approaches to social change. Penelope had worried she would feel nothing, or that her
mother would show no love for her, no feelings, no affection
Amma’s play was finally invited to premier at The National
thanks to a woman who worked her way up to the how wrong she was, both of them are welling up and it’s like the
historically male-dominated position of artistic director, years are swiftly regressing until the lifetimes between them no
giving her the power to choose which plays made it to the longer exist
esteemed stage. In this sense, Carole’s work as a reformer, this is not about feeling something or about speaking words
in her traditionally white, male-dominated position of power
this is about being
as a vice president of a major bank, also helped propel
society towards this point in history when more women, together
and especially women of color, are breaking into leadership
roles and opening doors for others once there. Related Characters: Penelope Halifax/Barbara (speaker),
At the same time, while Carole helped make Amma’s Hattie “GG” Jackson
moment possible, she doesn’t see herself reflected in the
Related Themes:

Page Number: 452 stands before her is the woman who gave birth to her, her
tone suddenly changes. She had feared that she and her
Explanation and Analysis mother would struggle to connect, and that perhaps she
In this final scene, Penelope finally confronts and starts to wouldn’t be able to feel anything for Hattie at all. When
unpack the racist beliefs that were handed down to her by they’re face to face, however, she realizes her fears were
her adoptive mother and reaffirmed from a life spent living unfounded. She describes the newfound bond as “pure and
as a white person with all the associated privileges. primal,” describing an animalistic, essential desire and love
Penelope heads to this reunion still shocked and distressed that bonds mothers and their children.
by the revelation that she’s part Black. When she sees her All of Penelope’s fears of rejection dissipate, and in that
birth mother, Hattie, for the first time, she describes her moment their togetherness transcends all else. It’s
through a stereotypical and dehumanizing lens. She views incorrect to think that this meeting and realization will
her as a feral, wild animal, similar to how she describes the immediately erase Penelope’s decades worth of learned and
school she worked at as a “multi-cultural zoo,” implying that internalized racism, but this final scene suggests that people
she sees people of color as more like animals than people. have the capacity to unlearn their racism and break the
She’s playing into age-old stereotypes that paint Black and generational transfer of white supremacy—and that
African people as animalistic. personal relationships are a major, even irreplaceable part
As she further internalizes the reality that this woman who of that.

SUMMARY AND ANAL

ANALYSIS
YSIS
The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the
work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart.
CHAPTER 1: AMMA
It’s early morning, and Amma Bonsu is walking along the River By premiering her play at the National, Amma risks becoming what
Thames in London. A violinist plays an uplifting tune in the near she once protested. The National is one of London’s most esteemed
distance as the sun is rising. Tonight her play, The Last Amazon theaters, but for years it—and the mainstream theater world in
of Dahomey, will premiere at the National Theatre. Amma general—excluded actors and directors of color like Amma and
thinks back to when she first started out in theater. She and her Dominique. When stories featuring Black women made it to the
friend Dominique protested shows that were in conflict with stage, they were often demeaning, stereotypical, or problematic, like
their political beliefs. They believed in bold and disruptive they play they so boldly protest. Amma and Dominique’s
public displays of protest. Amma remembers pouring a beer on commitment to daring acts of protest situates them as radicals,
a director whose play featured semi-naked Black women working from outside of society’s preexisting institutions to either
running around on stage “like idiots.” She and Dominque ran change or dismantle them altogether.
from the scene and into the streets of London laughing.
Amma thinks about the decades she spent excluded from the Amma’s plays were rejected by the mainstream theater world for
mainstream theater world. Now radical theater is becoming years, but now the National is seeking radical stories. As society has
mainstream, and Amma was invited in by the National become increasingly diverse, so too has the theater, earning a
Theatre’s first female artistic director, who loved her play. As progressive reputation that it wants to keep. It’s the theater’s first
Amma continues to walk, the National Theatre comes into female art director, someone who worked to reform the institution
view, and she reflects that years ago people dressed up to come from the inside, who brought Amma and her radical story onto the
here and would have looked down on someone like her, clad in a stage, which demonstrates how the reformer and radical achieve
Che Guevara beret, PLO scarf, and feminist buttons. Now the social change side by side. At the same time, the theater threatens
theater is considered progressive, and Amma is an insider. Her to erase Amma’s radical identity. By working from within the
own style has changed now, too, preferring sneakers or mainstream, Amma risks losing her edge. Her art, like her clothes,
Birkenstocks, black slacks or patterned harem pants and bright, might become more modest and moderate over time in this new
asymmetric tops. She wears dreadlocks, hoop earrings, African context.
bangles, and her signature pink lipstick.
Amma’s daughter, Yazz, describes Amma’s style as the “mad old Yazz enforces a clear generational divide between herself and her
woman look.” Yazz is embarrassed to be seen in public with her mother. Amma’s style represents something old-fashioned and
mother. At 19, she thinks her 50-something mother is old, but embarrassing to Yazz. Like she does with most things in life, Amma
Amma is not ashamed of aging. However, she feels she’s the views aging through a radical lens. She’s frustrated with her friends
only one among her friends who considers aging a privilege. who are settling into conventional middle age, rather than
Gathered at her house in Brixton for a potluck dinner, she tells questioning or rebelling against it.
them that aging is preferable to dying prematurely, but rather
than agree with her unconventional interpretation of middle
age, they smile and talk about their typical middle-age maladies.
©2022 LitCharts LLC www.LitCharts.com Page 31

Amma is nervous for opening night. She worries that critics will Now that she’s inside the mainstream theater world after years of
call her an imposter and write negative reviews. She reminds being shut out, Amma is struggling with imposter syndrome, a
herself that she’s experienced—having written 15 plays and feeling that she’s not qualified for or deserving of the esteemed
directed over 40—and has a fantastic cast of actors for the play. stage. She’s internalized the years of rejection and racism, causing
She’s suddenly reminded of a young actress in her cast who, full her to doubt her own skills and experience. Amma’s young cast
of herself after landing a job at the National straight out of member reveals how much the theater world has changed since
school, complained that Amma was working them too hard. Amma started out. While she complains about having to work too
This interaction made Amma miss Dominique, who left for the hard, she’s landed a role in a play by and for Black women right out
United States years ago. Amma feels Dominique should be in of college, while Amma and Dominique struggled to find any work at
London to share this long-awaited moment in her career. all at that age. It’s unclear why Dominique isn’t in London, but it's
clear Amma feels hurt by her absence.
Amma has a flashback to meeting Dominique in the 1980s at Amma and Dominique initially bond over their shared experience of
an audition for a movie about a women’s prison. They bond discrimination in the arts. The only roles available to Black women
over their frustration with being typecast for roles like slave, were either stereotypical or subservient. The nature of these roles is
servant, nanny, and prostitute and still not landing any jobs. so far from the reality of the Black women seeking roles out, like
After the audition, in a café in pre-gentrification Soho, Amma Dominique. When Amma looks at Dominique, she sees a multi-
admires Dominique. In stark contrast to the subservient roles dimensional goddess with many stories to tell. But when casting
available to her, she’s a gorgeous woman, tall and thin with directors look at Dominique, they only see a handful of potential
sharp cheekbones, smoky eyes, and thick lashes. She exudes stories.
coolness when she bikes around the city decked out in leather
and sporting a short haircut. Dominique confidently shouts,
“can’t they see I’m a living goddess?”
Dominique was born in Bristol to an Afro-Guyanese mother Growing up, Dominique feels pressured to keep her sexuality a
whose ancestors were enslaved and an Indo-Guyanese father secret, fearing rejection from both her immigrant parents and the
descended from indentured laborers. Dominique knew she was discriminatory, white British society she was born into. She leaves
a lesbian from a young age but kept this a secret from her her childhood home in search of a new home and community where
friends and family for fear of being a social outcast. At 16, she will be accepted for who she is, both as an artist and a lesbian.
Dominique left home for London, where she could proudly be In London she finds home and community in the stories and
herself. She learned everything she could about Black history histories of other powerful Black women. She grows into a radical,
and devoured Black feminist books in independent bookstores. political identity. However, London fails to provide the theater
Politically radicalized, she enrolled in drama school, where she community she hoped to find. She’s told to accept a tradition that
pushed back against traditions that limited the roles women limits who and what she can be, and when she speaks up to assert
and people of color can play. The other students remained herself and her beliefs, she’s not only rejected but threatened with
silent when she spoke this way, and she was threatened with being cut out of that community entirely.
dismissal.

Amma’s own political passion comes from her father, Kwabena, Amma’s mother grew up in an England even less progressive than
a Ghanian journalist forced to flee to the UK after supporting the one Amma comes of age in. As a mixed race woman growing up
the independence movement. Amma’s mother, Helen, grew up in a white-supremacist society that upholds a white beauty
mixed-race in Scotland at a time when that was rare. She felt standard, she was made to feel ugly. She finds a new home and
ugly until she moved to London where African men, like community in London where being Black means being beautiful.
Kwabena, started to tell her she was beautiful. Amma’s three Amma’s home growing up was likewise imperfect. Although her
older brothers lived up to her father’s expectations to become father was himself a radical, he still held her to traditional gender
lawyers and doctors. He expected Amma to become a wife and roles and expectations that conflicted with her identity as a strong
mother, viewing her acting as a temporary hobby. Amma feminist. With her outsider’s perspective, Dominique understands
describes him as a patriarchal revolutionary. As Amma tells this that Amma’s father is a first-generation immigrant shaped by wildly
story at the café, Dominique reminds Amma that she can’t different social and political forces than his second-generation,
expect her father—a man born in 1920s Ghana—to understand English-born daughter. She can see him in all his complexity, as a
a woman born in 1960s London. Amma tells Dominique that man who is neither wholly good nor wholly bad. Amma’s proximity
she’s an “apologist for the patriarchy,” but Dominique argues as his daughter leaves her unable to be forgiving of his
that humans are complex. shortcomings, and instead her identity cultivated in the West
becomes a cultural divide between parent and child.
Amma explains that Helen worked full-time and managed the Amma’s anger extends to her mother, who likewise fails to live up to
household with no help from Kwabena, who was preoccupied her feminist expectations. Again, Amma fails to see the impact of
with fighting against capitalism and colonialism and advocating the social and political forces that shaped her parents. She
for socialism. Amma is still frustrated with her mother for acknowledges that her father’s life would likely be very different if
continuing to put up with her unaffectionate father. She thinks he’d been able to stay in his home country, without realizing that
Helen is unfulfilled and oppressed, never standing up to her these missed opportunities and his forced migration have left him
husband. Amma now admits he’d probably be an important deeply wounded. He remains a fervent activist, so he doesn’t lose
person in Ghana if he’d returned after independence, but touch with the radical identity his migration threatened to erase.
instead he became “President for Life” of his family, who While it’s not fair that Amma must contend with a homophobic
became the involuntary audience for his political preaching. father, it’s yet another example of how social and political
Amma is gay, which her mother still thinks is a phase and insists differences between the first-generation parents and their second-
she keep secret from her homophobic father. generation children fracture family bonds.
After exchanging these stories about their families, Amma tells Like Dominique, Amma is in search of a new home in her early 20s.
Dominique about her first time attending a Black women’s She craves a community that, unlike her childhood home, will
group, where they discussed their experiences as Black women accept her entire identity as a queer, Black, feminist woman. The
encountering white feminism, sexism, and racism. It felt like discussion and her connection with one of the women in the group
“coming in from the cold.” Amma stayed after the meeting to felt like a warm, joyful homecoming to a place where she is finally
make out with a woman, which felt like another “coming home.” valued for who she is. When the woman has already moved on from
When she returned to the meeting the following week, she was her a week later, Amma feels cast out from that community and
disappointed to see the woman snuggling with someone else. gives up on it.
She never attended another meeting.

That day in the café, after several hours and glasses of wine, Frustrated by their many failed attempts to enter the mainstream
Amma and Dominique decide that the only way to stay true to theater world, to be reformers from within, Dominque and Amma
their politics and be actors is to open their own theater decide to pursue radical change by opening their own theater
company. The Bush Woman Theatre Company will give voice to company completely outside of the mainstream. Rejected by their
women of color silenced by mainstream theater. They come up families and by the existing theater community, they carve out their
with a motto: “On Our Own Terms or Not At All.” At first their own home that exists on their own terms, allowing them to be their
constant fighting threatens failure, but once they decide Amma full selves. Amma and Dominique see their struggles as Black
will be the artistic director and Dominique the company women as interconnected with the struggles of all women of color.
manager, they begin to find success. They employ a crew, put The company focuses on telling different stories from diverse
on shows at small community centers, and even start to draw women who are all united around their common experiences of
the attention of the alternative press. Most importantly, their marginalization in a white-supremacist England.
shows adhere to their feminist mission.
In the early years of the company, Amma bounces between In her continued quest to seek home and community, Amma settles
shabby apartments until finding a permanent home in an old into the radical Republic of Freedomia, made up of fellow outsiders
office building that, with the rich owner’s permission, becomes who accept each other as they are. To Amma, Freedomia represents
a commune called the Republic of Freedomia, made up of all a truly radical way of life. However, there’s a clear contradiction
types of political and artistic outsiders. Amma starts sleeping inherent to the set-up. They are squatting in the building with
with multiple women in Freedomia, and her behavior starts to permission of the rich owners, which undermines the alleged
anger her lovers. She views commitment as imprisonment and radicalness of the act. Amma believes that her approach to love and
doesn’t sleep with the same woman twice because she thinks commitment are radical without acknowledging how her behavior is
they’ll become too needy and attached. She brags that she’ll hurting others. Her boasting about her multi-cultural love interests
sleep with any woman of any culture, race, or class. borders on fetishization.
As they become more and more popular in the art community, Dominque’s story highlights the intersection of race, sexuality, and
both Amma and Dominique have their choice of lovers, but love. Although she has her choice of lovers, she always ends up with
Dominique is a serial monogamist who falls for blondes. the blonde, white women who fit England’s white-supremacist
Amma’s friends suggest therapy might help her settle down. beauty standard. Her choice of lovers reflects how she may have
Insulted, she points out that promiscuous male rockstars are subconsciously internalized society’s messaging about who and
never told to seek therapy. In her present middle-age, pieces of what she should find desirable. Meanwhile, Amma’s story highlights
her past have started to haunt her as former “conquests” call how internalized misogyny shows up in the lesbian community. She
her out for her behavior on social media. Amma no longer treats the women she has sex with as conquests, people to be
sleeps around, and instead has settled down in a non- dominated and then forgotten, and defends her behavior by
monogamous triad with her long-term partners, Dolores and positioning it as a feminist argument: if a man can do it then so can
Jackie. she. Under the banner of feminist freedom, she’s replicating
misogynistic behaviors she’s internalized from living in a patriarchal
society that says women are meant to be dominated. Even when
women start to speak up about how her actions affected them, she
refuses to acknowledge the problematic nature of her behavior.

When she thinks back nostalgically on her youth spent with The two middle-aged lesbians at the once legendary, but now empty
Dominique, Amma remembers a trip they took to a legendary and forgotten, gay bar foreshadow the future in store for Amma and
gay bar, The Gateway. Inside they found only a few people. Two Dominique. The women at the bar are from a different era, a time
middle-aged lesbians, sporting old fashioned suits and men’s when lesbianism was far less accepted, when it was forced to
haircuts, looked like they were “straight out of the pages of The remain furtive and hidden and adhered to stricter gender roles of
Well of Loneliness.” An old couple, one in a suit and one in a butch and femme. Both The Well of Loneliness (a 1928 lesbian
dress, danced to Dusty Springfield. Amma noticed that the novel by Radclyffe Hall) and Dusty Springfield are cultural relics of
dancefloor was dark, with no disco ball to sprinkle “stardust on this time. To Amma, a member of a new generation, these women
to them.” are sad and pathetic. They’ve lost the shine and “stardust” of their
youth. Amma and Dominique, like many young people, think their
youth will last forever, but in the present day, Yazz, who represents
the next generation, sees Amma and her friends the way Amma
once viewed this older generation of queer women.
Back in the present, temporarily shaken from her flashback, Amma stands on the stage she was excluded from for so long. The
Amma walks into the National Theatre and onto the stage. She fact that a large audience is about to see her play accomplishes
stares out at the seats where more than 1,000 people will sit what she and Dominique always wanted: to get the voices of
tonight. The play’s entire run has sold out in advance, everyone women of color heard. However, putting the radical play onto a
eager to see something “different.” The play is based on the mainstream stage threatens to undermine its radicalness altogether.
18th- and 19th-century women warriors of the West African The middle-class audience eager to see “something different” may in
state of Dahomey. The warriors, all married to the king, were fact be more eager to prove themselves as tolerant and liberal
forbidden from any other sexual relations and commanded to connoisseurs of diversity. Their interest in the play may have more
kill off any male children they bore. Amma’s certain that this to do with what their attendance says about them, rather than
forced sexual segregation meant the women must have been in what the play itself is saying. Amma’s play is centered around
relationships with each other, and this idea inspired her play. powerful, Black woman characters, in stark contrast with those
stereotyped and subservient roles once available to her and
Dominique.
The main character of Amma’s play, Nawi (who is unable to Amma’s experience with her many lovers is reflected in Nawi’s story,
bear the king’s child) is forced to become one of the king’s but unlike Amma, Nawi is loyal and protective of her past lovers.
warriors. She becomes a legendary general with many women While Amma’s play is radical for its centering of powerful Black
lovers. Even after she tires of a lover, she remains loyal by woman characters, it’s simultaneously imperfect. Nawi fought in
protecting her from the king’s wrath. Eventually, old and alone, wars that contributed to the continuance of slavery in a post-
Nawi reconnects with the holographic ghosts of past lovers and abolition world. This reality highlights the complexity and
relives the wars she battled in. Controversially, the king did contradictions of people, history, and stories. Amma was always
business with outlawed slave ships, exchanging prisoners of tired of being typecast, but her own play contains traces of the very
these wars in order to build his own wealth. The play ends with things she fought against.
Nawi’s death.

While Dominique won’t be in the audience tonight, Amma’s Amma and Shirley found community with each other when they
friend Shirley, a teacher, will be, having never missed one of her were young girls each yearning to connect with someone who
shows. Shirley is Amma’s oldest friend. They met at 11 when looked like them in a society that was predominantly white.
they were the only two brown girls at school, and Shirley has Although they are opposites in terms of their personalities and
always been Amma’s opposite. Shirley is neat while Amma is ideologies, they bond over their shared racial identity and the
messy; she’s ordinary compared to Amma’s eccentricity. isolation that has often come with it. While Amma defends Shirley
Amma’s friends think Shirley is boring, but Amma always when her radical friends criticize her for being too normal or
defends her. She frequently babysat Yazz, a favor Amma rarely mainstream, the way Amma conceives of her relationship with
returned, and she often lent Amma money, which Amma usually Shirley is itself problematic. Amma justifies her selfishness in the
never repaid. Amma assuaged her guilty feelings about the friendship by belittling Shirley’s life choices, and uncritically
seemingly one-sided nature of the friendship by convincing assuming her own superiority.
herself that she made Shirley’s boring life more exciting.
Amma thinks about the rest of her friends. She misses who they Amma’s assumption of superiority extends to many of her other
were in their youth before they changed with age. Mabel “went friendships. She looks down on them for exchanging the radical
straight,” Olivine—who Amma suggests is “too dark” for success lifestyles of their 20 for more settled lives in middle age. Amma
in the UK—is a star in Hollywood, and Katrina settled down as a mocks Mabel’s bisexuality and discounts Olivine’s mainstream
“born-again Anglophile” with her wife outside of London. success after years of struggling against racism and colorism in the
Lakshmi, who will be there tonight, is a saxophonist who once U.K. She criticizes these women while she herself stands on the
composed for Amma, but she now plays avant-garde music that precipice of surrendering her radical identity by premiering her play
Amma scoffs at. Amma gives Lakshmi, who is in her late 50s, a at the National. Amma fails to see her own hypocrisies, that her
hard time for exclusively dating people in their 20s and 30s. friends could say the same about her as she does about them.
Amma’s criticism of Lakshmi’s avant-garde music and choice of
romantic partners may indicate her own anxiety that someone’s
work and lifestyle is more radical than her own.
Amma remembers their friend Georgie. Disowned by her Georgie serves as a reminder that not everyone survives in a world
religious family, she drank, did drugs, and had trouble attracting that is dead set against them and their identities. Amma wonders if
women. Deeply insecure, she thought she was too ugly to she failed to be the home and community that Georgie so
attract women, and nights out often ended in tears. The last desperately needed.
time she saw Georgie, Amma had to force her to throw up pills
she took in a bar. For the first time, Amma felt fed-up and angry
with Georgie’s insecurity and hopelessness, and she was
frustrated that Georgie was failing at being an adult. A week
later, Georgie fell from her balcony in a likely suicide. Amma still
wonders if it’s her fault.

Then there’s Sylvester, who never misses an opening night and Sylvester stood on the radical, cutting edge of gender in a time when
whose own theater work is inspired by avant-garde films. it was more difficult to do so. He fought to make progress, but now
Sylvester used to be Sylvie, and he and his life partner, Curwen, contradictorily denigrates how that progress has made freedom of
lay claim to being on the forefront of what’s now become the gender expression and identity mainstream. Sylvester criticizes
trend of challenging gender norms. Recently, he and Amma got Amma the way she criticizes the friends she believes have
drinks at the Ritzy after he called her a sellout. At the bar they abandoned their radical identities. Both Amma and Sylvester fail to
glare at the yuppie gentrifiers interloping in this space full of see their own hypocrisies when they glare at the gentrifiers with
people like Amma and Sylvester who arrived when the disdain. The first wave of gentrification is often made up of artists,
neighborhood was cheap and crime-ridden. radicals, and outsiders who initially descend on neglected and
marginalized neighborhoods. In other words, Amma and Sylvester
refuse to acknowledge their own complicity in the very thing they
now hate.
Amma notes that Sylvester is as revolutionary as ever but that While Amma criticizes her friends she deems not radical enough,
this is not always a good thing. Sylvester calls Amma a sellout she simultaneously criticizes Sylvester for being too radical. She
again. He still runs his socialist theater company, and thinks positions herself as above everyone else. Her path alone is the most
Amma should still be running hers, too. He wants her to return noble one. Sylvester wants Amma to reclaim her radical identity, to
to community centers, making her plays accessible to all. She go back to working for change from the outside. Amma takes up the
argues that she has the right to direct at the National and that argument in favor of reforming society from within its existing
the theater should be trying to attract more diverse audiences, institutions. She asserts that her work at the National is an
not just the middle-class. Amma holds back from reminding important marker of progress, and while this may be absolutely true,
Sylvester of his economically privileged background, but when it flies in the face of her professed radical beliefs and identity.
he tells her she’s abandoned her political principles for the sake Sylvester, who fails to acknowledge his economically privileged roots
of ambition she walks out on him. at odds with his radical identity, reflects Amma’s hypocrisies back at
her, but she still fails to see her own. They both ignore anything that
blatantly contradicts who they profess themselves to be.
Amma walks home from the National, thinking about how Amma argues that her mother’s cancer grew out of her acceptance
grateful she is to be a homeowner. When the tenants at of the subservient, repressed life she led, which comes close to
Freedomia were finally evicted, she bounced between places suggesting that her death was in part her own fault because she
until her parents died. Helen died of cancer, which Amma saw failed to be a feminist. She imposes her own narrative onto her
as a symbol of her oppression. Amma’s father, Kwabena, died mother without ever having asked her how she felt about her life
shortly after, and his death filled her with a grief she didn’t choices. It’s only after her father dies that Amma can see him
expect. Amma was overcome with guilt for not recognizing he through the compassionate lens Dominique tried to get her to see
was a product of a different time and culture and never him through all those years before. Amma finally understands the
expressing her love for him. She regrets taking him for granted weight of the trauma he endured as a first-generation immigrant
and holding him to her unforgiving feminist standard. In her exiled from his homeland, but it’s too late for them to reconcile.
eulogy, she reflected on the trauma he must have endured Amma criticizes Sylvester for his financial privilege, yet, meanwhile,
when leaving his country. Her brothers gave her the largest she’s benefitted financially from her own inheritance.
share of the inheritance, which she used to buy her house.

Amma thinks about Yazz’s birth 19 years ago. Determined to As she did all things, Amma was determined to parent radically. The
raise Yazz unconventionally, she decided to co-parent with her way she conceived and raised Yazz, while radical then, is now
gay friend, Roland, Amma’s sperm donor who took Yazz on increasingly common. Amma contradicts her own radical beliefs
weekends. She breastfed in public, let Yazz wear whatever she once more when she starts policing Yazz’s body and sexuality.
wanted, and let her speak her mind. Amma wanted to raise a Defying the objectifying male gaze herself is one thing, but watching
powerful feminist. As Yazz got older, however, men started to her daughter go up against it and the constant threat of harm is
notice her and Amma became protective, policing her clothing another. Even the feminism that Amma wished to pass down to
and worrying about her boyfriend. Yazz identifies as a Yazz is outdated by the time Yazz is grown and developing her own
humanitarian, more interested in the non-binary present than political identity.
her mom’s old-fashioned “women’s politics.”
Now that Yazz is away at college and Amma misses her, she Amma is now on the receiving end of the same incessant criticism
doesn’t miss the hurtful words Yazz spews her way. Young she used against her parents. From her new position as a parent, she
people, she says, think they’re the only ones with feelings. But understands the emotional pain her words must have caused back
she misses her presence in their home, her noise and chaos and then. The cycle of generational criticism continues. Regardless,
her idiosyncratic ways of being. Still, she hopes that Yazz, like Amma misses the home she created for herself and her daughter.
most people her age living in a now unaffordable world, will With Yazz’s departure, Amma has lost another home.
come home after she’s finished at university. Amma wants Yazz
to come back home forever.
CHAPTER 1: YAZZ
Yazz sits in the seat her mother, Amma, saved for her, the best Amma wants the person she loves most to have a front row seat to
in the house. She’s worried that the play will be another her premiere and the major accomplishment it represents.
embarrassment. Yazz quickly gets lost in thought as she Meanwhile Yazz, ever critical of her mother, is preoccupied with the
observes everyone around her. Waris and Courtney, two worry her outdated, once-radical mother will embarrass her as
members of her “squad” dubbed “The Unfuckables,” sit next to usual. Yazz upholds the generational divide that Amma once upheld
her. The squad are determined to get good degrees because to in her own youth. Yazz blames her mother’s generation for all the
them it’s the only way to save the world that their elders have world’s ills, meanwhile ignoring all that her mother did to make
destroyed. The climate is in crisis, the UK is exiting the EU, social change within the arts. The name of Yazz’s crew asserts
America has a “perma-tanned” president, and their generation power and defiance against a society that threatens them at every
is doomed to live in their parents’ homes forever thanks to the turn with the rise in white-supremacy and nationalism in the wake
economy. Yazz wants to become a journalist to make her voice of Donald Trump’s election and Brexit. Yazz doesn’t realize that her
heard. goal in life, to make her voice heard, is the same goal her mother set
out to achieve in her own youth with her theater company, revealing
that the generational divide is not so wide as she thinks.
As usual, the theater is full of old people—including Amma’s Yazz easily sees through her mother’s hypocrisies. Yazz sees her
friends, like Sylvester, whom Yazz pities. Amma has been mom struggling with her decision to give up her radical identity, that
complaining that he refuses to change, and Yazz thinks Amma once aligned her with Sylvester, for her place at the National where
was guilty of that herself until landing the gig at the National she risks becoming a sellout like the old friends she also criticizes.
and suddenly looking down on her old theater friends. She also Yazz can also see her mother’s role in gentrification, which Amma
criticizes her mom for getting angry about gentrification, when herself can’t or won’t acknowledge.
she’s been a gentrifier for years and was even spotted at the
new café that sells expensive breakfast cereal.

Yazz spots her dad, Roland, a couple rows ahead, who wears Yazz likewise homes in on her father’s hypocrisies and criticizes him
expensive clothes but claims he can’t help pay for her college. incessantly. Yazz sees Roland as someone who has unquestionably
He's a professor and bestselling author. Yazz criticizes his internalized the norms of white-supremacist society. His syllabi
white-male-dominated syllabi as being at odds with his own uphold a traditional canon that excludes people of color despite
identity as a person of color. He’s speechless in the face of her being one himself. There’s a clear generational divide between
critiques. He's become a TV personality and Amma says he’s Roland and Yazz, just like there is between Yazz and Amma. In the
sold out to the “establishment,” but still agrees with everything same way that Sylvester calls Amma a sellout, Amma hurls the
he says. Yazz knows she and her dad will have a healthy same insult at Roland. Yazz condescendingly thinks it’s her job to
relationship one day, but that it’s her job to educate him. educate Roland on progressive social and political values without
recognizing the social change Roland has effected by rising through
the ranks in academia as a Black man. Like her mom before her,
she’s ignorant of her own hypocrisies.
Yazz’s godfather Kenny, Roland’s partner, is seated next to him. Kenny understands the impact that Yazz’s criticisms have on her
He’s also old-fashioned but she likes him because he isn’t father in a way that she can’t see. Yazz believes she was born into
arrogant like her father. Recently Kenny asked her to be less poverty, when in reality she was born to two academically
harsh on her dad, but she’s reluctant to concede. After “being successful parents, who could provide her with a comfortable life.
born into poverty,” as she describes it, Yazz implores her mom Her mother’s status as a homeowner is itself a financial privilege.
to sell their house, which is now worth a fortune thanks to the Yazz’s ignorance of her relative privilege is evident in her very selfish
gentrification she herself jumpstarted. Yazz wants to buy an demand that Amma sell her home in order to buy her an apartment.
apartment with the money. Amma doesn’t respond to this
proposal.
Yazz wants the play to be a success because she doesn’t want Yazz’s fear of the fallout that would follow a failure reveals that
to deal with the emotional fallout that’s sure to follow if it’s a despite some of her material privileges, Yazz’s childhood was
failure. She anticipates being trapped on the phone, subject to emotionally difficult at times. Amma looks to Yazz for emotional
Amma’s angry lectures about how the critics don’t understand support, forcing Yazz into the reversed role of caretaker. Amma is
Black women’s lives, leaving them unable to appreciate the play. understandably frustrated by the mainstream theater world that
She’d complain that they only understand stories about aid overlooks stories that center Black women, instead favoring stories
workers in Africa, troubled teenagers, African American blues that center and celebrate white saviorism or depict Black people in
singers, or white people rescuing slaves. Yazz thinks emotional roles that white people are comfortable with.
caretaking is the price she has to pay as an only daughter.
Yazz hoped to fall in love at college, but instead finds only loud, Yazz’s struggles to find love highlight how online dating has allowed
drunk, and obnoxious boys. She’s given up on her love life for misogyny to flourish in new ways. Yazz plays off her mother’s
now, lamenting that she’s living in the era of dating apps among tendency to bring new women in and out of her life by highlighting
men who expect sex to be like the porn she assumes they watch how she worked this situation to her advantage. Amma’s constant
all day. She admits that Amma has more game, and despite her parade of partners is another aspect of Yazz’s unconventional
“multicultural whoredom,” is happy she’s settled down with her upbringing that others assume may have negatively affected Yazz,
two white partners, Dolores and Jackie. Yazz has watched and that Yazz defends her parents against. However, it’s clear that
women come in and out of her mother’s life, even fight over her, Yazz does find comfort in the stability that Dolores and Jackie bring
and she expects a new woman will enter the picture soon. The into her mother’s life. Yazz is often torn between celebrating the
women always try to impress Yazz, and she takes full unconventional aspects of her childhood and acknowledging the
advantage. Although she’s constantly criticizing her parents, parts that made it difficult at times.
Yazz defends them against the people who assume she’s been
emotionally damaged by her unconventional childhood.

The one boy Yazz did go on a date with at college swiped Yazz’s experience with this boy points to how the digital era has
through his dating app right in front of her before leaving to go reduced love and relationships to an algorithm that presents people
out with someone else. She knows she’s attractive, but no one with seemingly endless potential partners. This ultimately leaves
can compete with the artificially attractive women online. Yazz young people reluctant to commit to any one person because the
wants a monogamous, long-term relationship, but until then prospect of someone better is always just a swipe away. Amma
maintains a casual relationship with an American boy who has a describes this same concept when she talks about “Looking for
girlfriend back home. She worries that she’s doomed to be Obama Syndrome.” The world of celebrity and social media presents
single forever, like all Amma’s straight friends who can never impossible ideals that leave people unsatisfied with reality. Yazz
find someone good enough, who her mom describes as having wants a monogamous relationship, which contradicts with her
“Looking for Obama Syndrome.” willingness to be involved in the American boy’s infidelity. Like
Amma, she too is full of contradictions and hypocrisies.
The fourth member of the squad, Nenet, is already engaged Nenet’s situation eliminates the problem of seemingly endless
through an arranged marriage. She resisted at first, but quickly choices. While Western society and feminism in particular view
gave in to avoid getting a job after college. She eventually arranged marriage as an outdated and misogynistic practice, Nenet
warmed up to her fiancé Kadim. She still gets straight A’s and challenges that assumption by being both satisfied with her
she passionately defends herself and her classmates against impending arranged marriage and maintaining an identity as a
misogynistic men on campus. Waris also has a boyfriend, Einar, fierce feminist on campus. Her desire to marry and have a man
and the two geek out over anime. Waris draws a comic about a provide for her is likewise frowned upon by white, Western
Somali superwoman who castrates men who hurt women. feminists, which ultimately undermines Nenet’s right to make this
choice for herself. Waris’s comic is a story, like those Amma tells,
that centers and celebrates the strength of Black women.
Yazz was instantly drawn to Waris, bonding over their Yazz and her friends value being outsiders. Like Amma and
criticisms of their immature classmates who run around getting Dominique before them, their Blackness sets them apart from their
drunk—on their way to rehab, Yazz thinks—unlike the squad, predominantly white classmates, and rather than assimilate they
who all prefer sobriety. Waris wears her hijab as a political choose a more radical path, embracing and proudly asserting their
statement, not a religious one. She thinks she’s ugly and fat, difference. While white, western feminists see the hijab as a symbol
refusing to leave the house without a mask of makeup, and Yazz of oppression, Waris challenges this stereotype, wearing it as a bold,
tries to convince her that she’s beautiful. She often wears feminist, and political statement that defends her culture and
sunglasses on overcast days, to appear fearless she says, but identity against white feminist assumptions. Despite her fierce
Yazz suggests she may be hiding her fear behind them. Waris feminist and political beliefs, Waris still struggles with internalized
concedes both theories might be true, and Yazz loves that they beauty standards that leave her feeling insecure about her body.
see the world similarly. The dual meanings of her symbolic sunglasses represent the
difficulty of remaining fearless in a society endlessly critical of
women, and especially women of color.

Waris says the world was different before 9/11 even though Waris, a Black woman and Muslim, contends not only with racism
she can’t remember what that world was like. Her mom, and misogyny, but Islamophobia. 9/11 didn’t create Islamophobia,
Xaanan, explains that in the “before,” Americans looked at it always existed, but the event transformed and intensified it. Waris
women in hijab with pity, but in the “after” with hostility. Every highlights the double standards in society that portray all Muslims
time there’s a terrorist attack, Waris steels herself for more as villains when an individual Muslim participates in violence, while
racist abuse. She hates that when Muslims carry out an attack white violence is individualized, sparing white people as a whole
it’s called terrorism, but when a white man does the same he’s from this gross generalization. Waris’s grandmother highlights the
called mad. The racism has forced her grandmother into hiding devastating impact that racism can have on mental health.
in her apartment, where she disappears into prescription pills.
Xaanan taught her kids that they could let themselves be Xaanan is a powerful Muslim feminist who obliterates the
crushed by these harsh realities or become fighters. She works stereotypes that white, western feminists impose on Muslim
at a community center for Muslim women and teaches martial women. Her work is dedicated to strengthening and empowering
arts to women, including Waris. Waris lists all the terrible, her community in the face of a hostile white society. Yazz’s tendency
racist remarks made to her over the years, and Yazz says she to victimize Waris reveals how women of color are capable of
feels sorry for all the ways she’s suffered. Waris says her internalizing and reproducing the same harms as white women.
suffering pales in comparison to what the generations of Somali Despite her progressive political beliefs, Yazz fails to see how her
women before her have endured. She pushes herself to be well-intentioned sympathy for Waris is in fact harmful. While Waris
successful in the UK because of the sacrifices that made her life has suffered from Yazz’s perspective, Waris herself understands the
possible. She tells Yazz not to treat her like a victim. privileges she has as a second-generation child of immigrants. Yazz
isn’t the child of immigrants, so she doesn’t understand the realities
of this experience.
One night Waris, Yazz, and Nenet dance to their favorite Courtney replicates white people’s tendency to police Black people
Egyptian singer. Courtney, a white girl, knocks on the door in for having fun. Nenet’s role as peacekeeper represents, on a small
her pajamas and asks them to turn it down, and Yazz says no. scale, her and her family’s alignment with the West, in contrast with
Nenet breaks the tension. She says she learned how to handle Yazz and Waris’s standing defiantly outside and against it. Nenet’s
conflict from her dad who was a diplomat during Mubarak’s family’s privilege is rooted in their political connections. Her father
presidency, which Waris calls a dictatorship, but Nenet calls and grandfather were close to Mubarak and his regime, which was
political stability. Nenet’s grandfather was family friends with installed and supported by the West. They were part of the
Mubarak. Nenet tells Waris her parents are so diplomatic country’s elite that had to flee in the wake of the Arab Spring, and
they’d be nice to her, a Somali, who Egyptians typically look their wealth makes this escape possible. Egyptian discrimination
down on. Nenet’s family flew to the UK when Mubarak was against Somalis, as well as their differences in political opinion,
ousted, made possible by the dual citizenship her father paid a highlight how political realities complicate friendships like Nenet
hefty sum for. Nenet doesn’t know where her family’s money and Waris’s.
that bought privileges like boarding school comes from.

Nenet invites Courtney in and teaches her how to dance. Courtney is immediately confronted with her unexamined bias and
Courtney is having fun “belly dancing,” as she describes it, and racism when she enters this predominantly Black space, which is a
Yazz calls her out for being Orientalist. Nenet steps in to rare experience for white people who are used to being the majority
explain the dance to Courtney who just shrugs while she in white, Western society. It’s an inversion of the broader reality on
dances better than the rest of them. At breakfast the next campus, where Yazz, Waris, and Nenet are surrounded by
morning, Courtney tells them she grew up on a farm, which the whiteness. At the same time, Courtney introduces complexity and
other three joke explains her farmgirl looks. Waris and Yazz intersectionality. Her dance skills undermine stereotypes that white
have never been on a farm, but Nenet’s parents own one. Yazz people can’t dance, and Yazz and Waris make stereotypical
and Waris conjure romantic images of farm life that Courtney assumptions about her life growing up on a farm that Courtney tells
says are nothing like where she’s from. them are untrue. Nenet’s family owns a farm because of their
wealth, whereas Courtney grew up in an impoverished rural
community on her parents’ struggling farm. Courtney reveals how
class intersects and complicates simple narratives of privilege, while
at the same time she’s held accountable for her racism.
Courtney asks Waris why she wears a headscarf, and though Courtney’s insincere apology reveals how white people often avoid
this would usually make her angry, she simply says her mother, or refuse to own up to their racism. Despite her imperfections, Yazz
Xaanan, told her she never needs to explain herself to anyone. lets her into the squad, revealing that socio-political realities
Courtney offers an apology that’s more an excuse, pleading complicate but don’t completely preclude friendships. Courtney’s
ignorance. Yazz thinks that, even though she’s ignorant, honorary “sistahhood” invites her to be an ally to the rest of the
Courtney is tough like the rest of “The Unfuckables.” She likes squad.
her, so she’s in the squad. A few months later, she formally tells
Courtney that she’s an honorary “sistah.” She explains that
being a sistah is about responding to how they’re perceived as
Black women and claiming who they are.
Yazz warns Courtney that being a white woman with brown Yazz tells Courtney that being a white ally to people of color comes
friends she’ll be perceived as different and lose some of her with its own set of consequences. Throughout history, white
privilege. Courtney pushes back, telling Yazz that her activists have sacrificed, to some extent, their standing among other
intellectual parents grant her a lot of privilege, while she’s from white people by fighting for justice. At the same time, Courtney will
a poor, rural community. Yazz says that being Black makes her always maintain white privilege that spares her from the harsher
more oppressed than anyone, except for Waris who is black, consequences that people of color face for standing up for justice.
Muslim, female, poor, and wears hijab. In return, Courtney Courtney confronts Yazz with her own hypocrisies and lack of
quotes Roxane Gay, who argues that playing the “privilege intersectional awareness. While Yazz claims that she grew up in
Olympics” ignores the context and relativity of privilege. Gay poverty, she was economically privileged compared to Courtney.
calls for a “new discourse for discussing inequality.” Totally Yazz is constantly playing what Roxane Gay calls the “privilege
shocked that Courtney has read Roxane Gay, Yazz is left Olympics,” ranking her friends in order from most to least oppressed,
speechless by this “#whitegirltrumpsblackgirl” moment. which Gay asserts is a reductive and ineffective way of talking about
privilege. Courtney’s ability to call Yazz out undermines Yazz’s
condescending belief that she is the ultimate progressive authority
who educates the helplessly ignorant like Roland and Courtney.
When Yazz gets caught up in the “privilege Olympics” and elevates
Waris as the “most” oppressed in their friend group, she continues to
victimize Waris in the exact way that Waris has asked her not to.

Courtney says she only dates Black men, so will have mixed- Courtney’s unexamined racism shows up in her beliefs about dating
raced children who will compromise her white privilege by “at and relationships. Her insistence that she only dates Black men
least 50%.” Before college she’d never met a Black person. Her borders dangerously on fetishization. She believes that being with a
town was all white except for three Asians. Yazz invites Black man and having mixed-race children means she’ll be less
Courtney to stay at her house the summer after their freshman privileged by association. In reality, this belief ignores the enduring
year. Courtney explains that she’d only been to London once power of white privilege and the stories of mixed-race children who,
because her parents think the city is full of “coloureds,” “gays,” as adults, express how they were deeply harmed by their white
“left-wingers,” and “immigrants” who are ruining the country’s parent’s internalized and unconscious racism that showed up in the
economy. Courtney calls her father a hypocrite because he’s way they treated their own children. Even though Courtney
friends with a South Asian man in town, but her father insists criticizes her father’s blatant racism, she’s inevitably internalized
he’s “different” from the people he reads about in his papers. some of this ideology and hasn’t done the work to fully unpack her
Yazz says the British economy would collapse without the own racism. Her desire to use a mixed-race baby as a prop to upset
people he hates. Courtney can’t wait to see his reaction when her father is just as problematic as his outward racism, although she
she has a mixed-race baby one day. doesn’t realize the extent of her hypocrisy.
Yazz takes Courtney all over the city. Courtney is excited by all This scene reveals how white beauty standards often make Black
the attractive Black men on the streets, and they notice her, women invisible, even in the eyes of Black men. Yazz is a prop that
too. Yazz usually gets checked out a lot when she’s out in the helps Courtney project her supposed racial tolerance and
city, but now Courtney is the center of attention. Yazz thinks to acceptance, similar to the way in which Courtney anticipates using
herself that Courtney isn’t even that stunning. Instead, she a mixed-race baby as a prop. Yazz’s desirability is erased when she
knows that a white girl walking with a Black girl signals that the walks alongside her white friends, highlighting how racist beauty
white girl is “black-man-friendly.” Yazz is used to becoming standards mean Black women are overlooked not just by white men,
invisible when she walks around with a white friend, and this who often won’t even consider dating a Black woman, but by
makes her feel jaded. members of their own community, too.
They meet up with Nenet at her house, where a maid lets them Although Courtney calls Yazz out on her financial privilege, forcing
in through the imposing security gate. While Courtney is her to confront her lack of intersectional awareness, she is awed by
seemingly enamored by Nenet’s wealth, Yazz realizes that and uncritical of Nenet’s extreme wealth. For Yazz, this realization
seeing her wealth is a lot different than just knowing about it. immediately shifts her perspective of Nenet. Yazz’s desirability is
Seeing just how wealthy she is permanently changes her once again erased not just by Courtney’s whiteness this time, but by
opinion of Nenet. They go for a walk in Hyde Park. Nenet is in Nenet’s lighter skin tone, which highlights how internalized racism
heels, toting a Chanel bag, and noticeably changing her body shows up in communities of color, in this case the problem of
language as they pass groups of men who check her out. Nenet colorism. Nenet’s lighter skin affords her a degree of privilege, and
identifies as Mediterranean and tries to convince her friends she uses that privilege to try and distance herself from her
that she isn’t Black. Waris implores her to admit that she’s Blackness. Waris calls her out on this, but at the same time she’s
African. The men in the park ignore Yazz who is “too dark” in assigning an identity to Nenet, compromising her right to asserting
their eyes but eat up Courtney, who loves the attention and is and defining her own identity. Ultimately, each character contains a
oblivious to their objectifying gazes. multitude of contradictions that complicate any attempt to impose
simple narratives of race and identity.

They talk about college and their ambitious summer plans. Nenet’s extreme wealth, and her admission that she’s paying for
Nenet reveals that she pays someone to write her essays. Yazz good grades, is a lesson in intersectionality for Yazz. She realizes
is shocked and angry that she’s cheating, and Nenet tries to that their shared Blackness may not be enough to hold them
downplay it by saying everyone else is doing it, too, including together. Intersectionality complicates simple definitions and
her fiancé. Yazz doesn’t know if their friendship will survive assumptions of community. It’s possible Yazz has more in common
now that she sees Nenet in light of her wealth and her with Courtney than she does Nenet, despite Yazz’s initial
dishonesty. Yazz questions if there’s really any substance assumptions. Without such extreme financial privilege, Yazz and
binding “The Unfuckables” together besides being brown girls Waris have no choice but to work hard if they want to succeed in a
on a mostly white campus. She thinks about how she’s going to white society that marginalizes Black women.
fight, not cheat, her way into the name she wants for herself in
journalism, the way Waris has to fight, too.
Yazz reflects that Courtney has become so much more worldly Despite all these lessons and realizations, Yazz still hasn’t unpacked
thanks to the rest of the squad, who aren’t your typical English all her own biases and hypocrisies. She still sees herself as
university students. Of them all, Yazz thinks Waris’s family’s Courtney’s teacher, forgetting or ignoring that Courtney has taught
painful history lends her a depth the rest lack, but is careful to her things, too. Although she remembers that Waris doesn’t want to
remember that Waris doesn’t want people to feel sorry for her. be victimized, she can’t help but do it anyway.
She thinks Waris’s circumstances have forced her to grow up
too fast, as have her own. Yazz’s thoughts are interrupted as
The Last Amazon of Dahomey begins.
CHAPTER 1: DOMINIQUE
Dominique spots Nzinga in Victoria station at rush hour. From the minute Nzinga appears in Dominique’s life, Dominique
Nzinga has fallen amidst the bustle, her bag spilling all over the puts her on an unrealistic pedestal of god-like perfection. Nzinga
floor, and Dominique helps her pick up her things. She is believes her way of living is superior to all others, and that assertion
stunned by her beauty. Nzinga is statuesque with glowing skin, of superiority immediately functions as a subtle critique of
flowing robes, and waist-length dreadlocks adorned with Dominique, specifically a critique of her body.
beads. Suspecting that she’s a lesbian, Dominique asks her out
to coffee in the station cafe and Nzinga accepts. Nzinga
explains she doesn’t abuse her body, so drinks only hot water
with lemon. Dominique is suddenly self-conscious for dunking
biscuits in her sugary coffee.
Dominique has never met an African American, so is fascinated Nzinga’s African American identity is exotic and unfamiliar to
with Nzinga’s accent, which reminds her of the cornbread, Dominique. It’s an image and identity Dominique imposes onto her.
gumbo, collard greens and other foods she’s read about in Dominique wants to complicate Nzinga’s narrative about visiting
African American literature. Nzinga is in England after making a Elmina Castle, in the same way she wanted to critique Amma’s
pilgrimage back to the “Motherland,” Ghana. She visited Elmina single narrative about her father. Dominique is hyper-aware of the
Castle, where thousands of Africans were imprisoned before ways that intersectionality complicates historical and social
they were sent to the Americas as slaves. Nzinga describes realities.
violently sobbing as she felt 400 years of painful history enter
her body. More than ever before she understands the white
man’s crimes. Dominique holds herself back from mentioning
that African men sold Africans into slavery, too, making for a
more complicated history.

Back in the U.S., Nzinga builds houses on women’s communes. Nzinga highlights the deep divisions that exist in the United States,
At five she moved from the UK to the “Dis-United States,” so counter to its narrative of unity and freedom. Nzinga’s early
her mother could be with a man she’d fallen in love with from childhood was deeply affected by the institutional inequities of
afar. They lived in a run-down trailer, her mother worked at a poverty, addiction, and misogynistic violence. Her mother’s story is
factory, and the man spent most of his time drunk and high. He a common one that upends the stereotypical narrative that men are
beat her mother when she tried to curb his substance abuse, the providers.
and eventually her mother turned to drugs, too. One night the
man raped Nzinga. She told a teacher at school the next day,
and she and her brother were sent to live in foster care with a
caring but not loving family.
Nzinga’s brother called her a “bull-dyke” after discovering her Along with the abuse she suffered within her own family, Nzinga
lesbianism. He joined the army and Nzinga was accepted to the had to contend with homophobia as well as southern racism both
recently desegregated University of Texas. After graduating, during and after Jim Crow segregation. Her early years were
she moved to a women’s commune where she wouldn’t have to traumatic both in and out of her home. Dominique, awed by her
deal with men like her brother and her rapist. She and her strength, thinks she’s phenomenal, a nod to Maya Angelou’s
brother never spoke again, not even when their mother died of Phenomenal Woman, and a “zami” in a nod to Audre Lorde’s
an overdose. Dominique admires her perseverance in the face biomythography. She turns Nzinga into one of her heroes.
of these struggles. She’s used to being perceived as strong, but Dominique’s own childhood traumas, namely being forced out on
feels she pales in comparison to Nzinga who is a “zami,” a her own at the young age of sixteen, leave her vulnerable to Nzinga’s
“phenomenon.” For the first time since she left home, she wants power. Nzinga offers to care for Dominique, who is yearning for that
to be cared for. She feels herself falling in love with this care at any cost and sees Nzinga as a home she never truly had.
stranger.
Nzinga tells Dominique that her series of blonde girlfriends On the one hand, Nzinga points out a pattern in Dominique’s life
indicates a self-loathing and internalization of white beauty that may have some merit, one that her friends have noticed, and
standards. Dominque remembers that Amma always teased one that is common in a white-supremacist society that portrays
her for this, but without judgement. Dominique is suddenly white women as the most desirable. On the other hand, Nzinga’s
worried that she’s failing to be a Black feminist, an identity she incessant scrutinizing of Dominique’s life leads her to question her
proudly wears. She believes Nzinga will make her a liberated own identity. She suddenly feels inadequate and like her identity as
Black woman. They sleep together every night. Dominique a Black feminist, one that she cultivated through her hard work at
raves to Amma about how this is the first time she’s truly been the radical Bush Woman Theatre company, is now up for debate.
in love. Amma invites them over for lunch at Freedomia, and Nzinga is positioning herself as Dominique’s liberator and savior,
Nzinga agrees so long as there are no white people and only and Dominique’s outsized admiration for Nzinga as well as her need
organic, vegan food. to be cared for threaten her autonomy and individuality. It’s also
clear Nzinga’s radical lifestyle has very strict rules governing who
she, and by extension Dominique, can eat or associate with—a red
flag.

Nzinga stuns everyone at Amma’s with her beauty. Amma Amma immediately sees through Nzinga’s charming façade to her
notices that her presence is so powerful that she diminishes narcissism and need to exert power and absolute superiority. Amma
everyone else. She wants Nzinga to prove herself worthy of refuses to give in to her demands and is extremely worried about
Dominique. Offended by Nzinga’s demands, Amma didn’t buy Dominique, whose personality has already noticeably changed
organic food as instructed. Everyone admires Nzinga, who sits under Nzinga’s influence. Her radical politics go so far as to
at the center of what Amma thinks is an unearned, overly undermine the women she claims to represent when she passive-
devoted attention. The gathering turns tense when Nzinga aggressively criticizes the women’s accents, as if it's impossible to be
declares it’s “weird” to hear so many Black women speak with both British and Black.
British accents. Amma balks at this implication that their
accents make them in-authentically Black, one she’s
encountered many times before. Dominique, usually
opinionated, sits silently at Nzinga’s side.
Glaring at Amma, Nzinga warns that there are dangerous Nzinga sees Amma seeing through her, and immediately recognizes
women among them. Nzinga tells the women that wearing her as a threat to exerting total control over Dominique. Her sinister
black socks is symbolic of stepping on their own people, to warning starts to put a calculated distance between Dominique and
never use black garbage bags, or step on a black doormat. Amma. Amma, who at this point is living at the peak of her radical
Amma finds this absurd and can’t believe the rest of the women lifestyle and identity, is shocked by Nzinga’s extreme radicalism.
nod along in agreement. Amma challenges Nzinga, and the two When Amma and Nzinga fight, Dominique is stuck in the middle
argue before Nzinga and Dominique leave. Amma is glad to see between her best friend and her new lover. In the face of Nzinga’s
them go but worried by Dominique’s blind devotion to this ultimatum, Dominique chooses her over Amma, and leaves her
woman. Amma hopes the relationship will end, but Dominique, British life and home behind.
faced with an ultimatum—move or break up—follows Nzinga to
America.
Dominique moves with Nzinga to a rural “wimmin’s” commune With Dominique separated from her home, friends, and community
called Spirit Moon. She becomes a strict vegan, radical feminist in London, Nzinga can control and change her entirely. Dominique
housebuilder just like Nzinga. They live in a cabin isolated from adopts Nzinga’s extreme way of life without realizing that Nzinga is
the rest of the commune. Dominique is enchanted by the in fact forcing this new life and identity on her. Nzinga continues to
surrounding nature and upset with Amma, who tried to poison Dominique’s opinion of Amma to strain their relationship
convince her not to come. Nzinga tells her that Amma is jealous even further. At this point, Dominique is too enchanted by this new
that she’s replaced her as the most important person in and exciting adventure to notice any of these red flags.
Dominique’s life. Dominique was tired of running the Bush
Woman Theatre company, and Nzinga is the new adventure
she yearned for.
They attend a dinner at Gaia’s house, the woman who owns the The Spirit Moon commune is meant to be a safe harbor away from
estate. Inside there are no pictures of men, women artists the misogyny and violence of men. However, Dominique
drone from the record player, and the women are glowing and immediately notices the cracks in its utopic façade. Like Nzinga, the
enthusiastic. Dominique feels she’s entered an alternate commune operates under extreme and strict rules. Additionally, the
society, and briefly wonders if it’s a cult. Men are strictly way that the other commune members tokenize Dominique for
forbidden from this divine feminine utopia, and if a woman being both Black and British highlights the limits of a predominantly
“goes straight” she’s forced to leave. Dominique attracts white, feminist community that wants to unite around womanhood
attention as a Black British woman. She notices that Nzinga sits without addressing the intersections of gender and race. When
alone looking angry, monitoring her every move until telling Dominique attracts all this attention, Nzinga gets angry because
Dominique it’s time to leave. other people threaten her total dominance over Dominique.

On the way back home Nzinga tells Dominique they aren’t Nzinga uses race to strategically separate Dominique from the
going to socialize anymore because these white women offer women on the commune. She knows that Dominique looks up to
fake friendship but will turn against them. Confused, her as an ideological authority, and will therefore comply, which
Dominique asks why they live here if she hates the other Dominique does even though there is a voice in the back of her mind
women so much, and Nzinga says it’s preferable to living among that questions Nzinga’s claims. Ironically, Nzinga’s behavior is
men. Nzinga tells Dominique that she’s safe and complete with becoming more and more misogynistic now that they’ve moved
her, though Dominique was feeling neither unsafe nor onto the commune that she claims is their escape from men and the
incomplete before. Nzinga decides to rename Dominique harms of a patriarchal society. Finally, Nzinga quite literally robs
Sojourner, after Sojourner Truth, despite Dominique’s protests. Dominique of her identity by forcing her to change her name,
She decides she won’t respond to this unwanted new name and ironically naming her after Sojourner Truth whose life cause was
starts to worry that maybe Amma was right to tell her not to freedom. Dominique is starting to see what Amma saw in Nzinga,
follow this woman. but now she’s too far away to reach out to her friend for help.
Nzinga tells Dominique it’s clear that they’ll be together Nzinga is intent on trapping Dominique and controlling her future.
forever. Dominique thinks it’s too early to declare this. They’re The story of her past partner, Roz, foreshadows a dark future for
only in their 20s, after all. Nzinga tells her about her first Dominique. When Roz breaks one of Nzinga’s strict rules, sobriety,
partner, Roz. They met on a women’s commune in Oregon, but the relationship descends into physical abuse. Nzinga presents the
after discovering Roz’s alcoholism they got into physical fights, fight as mutual, but it’s notably only Roz who suffers serious
culminating in one that sent Roz to the hospital with a broken injuries. Nzinga uses race and the threat of racism to convince
bone and head injuries. Nzinga explains that the all-white Dominique that she was blameless in this situation. Nzinga’s
community blamed and evicted her alone. She moved between “mechanical” embrace of Dominique reveals her absolute, crushing
women’s communes and had a series of relationships that all power over her. Escaping that embrace will be hard, if not next to
ended badly until meeting Dominique. Nzinga grips impossible, all on her own. Dominique’s love for Nzinga is so
Dominique’s head tightly in a “mechanical” embrace, imploring powerful that, despite her misgivings, she’s still deeply invested in
that they never keep secrets from each other. She asks the relationship.
Dominique if she still loves her, and Dominique says more than
ever, truly meaning it.
Soon their relationship is plagued by constant arguing. As conflicts arise, Dominique begins to understand the story about
Dominique questions the truth of the story about Roz. She is Roz as a warning. She’s still in love with the idea of Nzinga as her
still enamored with this woman who “rescued” her from “rescuer” and caretaker, but is beginning to realize that she’s also her
London but doesn’t know why she puts up with the way she warden. Dominique recognizes that she’s giving up her life and
controls her life and mind. Nzinga’s expectation that she give mind, but lacks the resources to escape. Dominique is beginning to
up her independence for love reminds Dominique of male articulate the hypocrisy in Nzinga’s behavior. Nzinga professes to
chauvinism. Dominique no longer feels like herself and hate men while at the same time weaponizing misogyny against
desperately needs to talk to Amma, but Nzinga gets upset Dominique, revealing that women can internalize and assert
when Dominique tries to talk to anyone. She sends Amma destructive patriarchal violence against other women. Nzinga can
letters, but never hears back. When she tells Nzinga that she sense that Dominique is coming to these realizations, so she
wants to call her, Nzinga is upset for days, so Dominique never doubles down on keeping Amma out of Dominique’s life.
brings it up again.

The strenuous eight-hour days building houses are drastically Nzinga’s misogyny and abuse further escalate. She forces
different than what Dominique imagined. Nzinga secures Dominique into the role of housewife, leaving her trapped in the
Dominique easier work duties and takes over all household house where she’s totally isolated and completely dependent on
chores. At first, Dominque is happy with this arrangement, but Nzinga. She polices Dominique’s body and becomes extremely
after a while is desperate for something to do. Her life is jealous and possessive, worrying about Dominique’s past white
suddenly reduced to loving and obeying Nzinga. Nzinga lovers. Nzinga continues to inundate Dominque with her extreme
criticizes Dominique’s “provocative” clothing, blames her when beliefs about love and race and Dominique gives into her ranting in
men in town check her out, and forces her to keep her hair order to try and restore peace. However, Nzinga can sense
buzzed. Dominique must constantly reassure Nzinga that her Dominique’s doubt and insincerity, and this outrages her because
past, white lovers aren’t a threat. Nzinga preaches that only a she wants total and complete control not just over Dominique’s
Black woman can truly love another Black woman. Dominique body, but terrifyingly, her thoughts as well.
gives in to her ranting, but Nzinga isn’t satisfied. She wants
Dominique to change, to accept her reasoning as the truth.
Dominique has been at Sprit Moon for a year when Amma Amma shows up and infiltrates the bubble that Nzinga has created
shows up unannounced. They’re thrilled to see each other. around Dominique. It becomes clear that Nzinga went to great
Amma’s been worried because Dominique never replied to her lengths to prevent communication between the two by throwing out
letters. Dominique is about to explain that she never received or hiding Amma’s letters. Nzinga is violently and palpably angry
any letters when Nzinga comes up from behind and rudely that Amma has arrived and threatens to upend the control she’s
addresses Amma. Nzinga’s anger fills the house with tension as worked so calculatingly to exert. With Nzinga hovering angrily in the
she silently cooks dinner. Amma ignores her, immediately background, Dominique is afraid to confide in even her best friend.
questioning Dominique to try and understand what’s going on Nzinga’s presence alone keeps Dominique trapped.
in her life here. Dominique reveals how limited her life has
become but insists that everything is perfect this way.
Behind this façade of perfection, Dominique thinks about how With the distance between her and Amma temporarily bridged,
much she misses the life of drama and protest she and Amma Dominique realizes how their separation was critical to Nzinga’s
lived back home. That life feels so far away to her now. She ability to take complete control over her. Even in Amma’s presence,
realizes that being cut off from Amma has meant being cut off however, Dominique complies in the face of Nzinga’s violence.
from her “Number One supporter” who would have questioned Nzinga continues to erase Dominique’s identity every time she calls
the facts of her life with Nzinga. The three women are eating her Sojourner. It’s Sojourner, not Dominique, who follows Nzinga to
one of Nzinga’s tasteless, vegan dinners. When she’s finished bed.
eating, Nzinga gets up and violently hurls her bowl across the
room. She stomps past Amma towards the bedroom,
addressing Dominique: “Sojourner, you coming?” Amma asks
who Sojourner is, and Dominique silently follows Nzinga.
The next morning Amma and Dominique have ten minutes The fear that Nzinga has instilled in Dominique leaves her unable to
alone while Nzinga showers. Amma wants to get away from break free, even though she knows Amma sees through her façade
“the madhouse,” but Dominique says a walk would make Nzinga of happiness, and even when Amma announces her plan to launch
too suspicious. On the porch, Dominique hopes the beautiful the rescue mission. Nzinga’s anger and power are stronger than
view will convince Amma that everything is fine. Predictably, what Dominique and Amma once shared, leaving Dominique
she isn’t convinced and instead speaks her mind. She tells her unable to open up to her best friend who is there to rescue her.
that she and a group of their friends in London are going to
launch a rescue mission to get her out from under Nzinga’s
control.

Dominique defends Nzinga, insisting that she’s helping her live Dominique still believes in the lie that Nzinga is her educator and
a better life and regurgitating her absolutist views. Amma asks savior, even though Nzinga’s abusive extremism so blatantly
Dominique what’s happened to her, and Nzinga, having snuck contradicts with the Black feminism she claims. Nzinga literally
up behind, says “nothing’s happened.” Nzinga pushes herself inserts herself between Amma and Dominique, physically dividing
between Dominique and Amma, who were sitting with arms them in the same way she’s been keeping them divided from afar.
linked. She starts railing against men, with her arm wrapped Even with Amma there to help her get away immediately,
tight around Dominique’s neck. Amma grabs her bags, Dominique has too deeply internalized the belief that she doesn’t
announces she’s going home, and tells Dominique to come with need rescuing, still believing that Nzinga is her rescuer.
her. Dominique shakes her head, thinking she doesn’t need
rescuing, and Nzinga holds her tighter, kissing her on the cheek.
Dominique and Nzinga complete their contract at Spirit Moon Now that they are both trapped in the house, Dominique is under
and have permission to stay in their cabin until they can find Nzinga’s constant surveillance and suffers her abuse without even a
more work elsewhere, leaving them with nothing to do but be brief escape. Nzinga has so broken her down that she doesn’t
with each other. Dominique knows she should leave but is so remember how to make her own decisions. While Nzinga’s violence
unused to making decisions for herself that she can’t imagine keeps Dominique physically trapped in the relationship, her
making such a significant one. Nzinga is increasingly obsessed ideological aggression and brainwashing are what keep her
with keeping Dominique away from both men and women, emotionally and mentally trapped. Nzinga lives completely inside
convinced they threaten to end their relationship. Nzinga Dominique. Dominique descends into a deep depression, making it
escalates to physical violence and Dominique can neither leave even more impossible for her to take action.
nor fight back. Dominique hears Nzinga’s voice inside her head
all day and spends most of her days sleeping and staring into
space.
One Saturday morning, Nzinga says she is going to town for the Gaia and the other women on the commune step in for Dominique.
day, which usually means she’ll sneak up on Dominique in a few They become the community she needs to finally escape. In
hours. Nzinga leaves and Gaia approaches the house. She tells betraying Nzinga Dominique is rediscovering how to be true to
Dominique that they’re worried about her. Dominique insists herself. Dominique has internalized the blame and shame that
everything is fine, but Gaia says that everyone knows the truth women often feel when they’ve been trapped in an abusive
about Nzinga. Dominique doesn’t want to betray Nzinga, but relationship. Dominique blames herself and can’t face her
finally admits that she’s trapped. Gaia plans to help her escape community back in England as a result, even though they’d welcome
the following Saturday. Dominique is too embarrassed to her back without judgement. Nzinga’s abuse has therefore robbed
return to England, so instead will stay with some of Gaia’s her of that home and community she once had.
friends in West Hollywood.
For years after she escapes from Nzinga, Dominique beats Dominique struggles with her internalized blame for years, and it
herself up for losing three years of her life to her. She is grateful takes her as long to build herself back up after being psychologically
to recover her strong identity. Gaia’s friends in California care detached from herself for so long. Her nightmares and the fact that
for her as she suffers through nightmares and struggles to get she gets sick when she can finally eat what she wants both
Nzinga’s voice out of her head. Now that she’s finally able to represent the extent to which Nzinga was able to completely
choose what to eat, her roommates treat her to a big barbecue, infiltrate her mind and body. Dominique is finding a new home and
but after eating Nzinga’s vegan food for so long she throws up community now that she is able to socialize again.
the meats. She and the roommates stay up late exchanging
stories. This night spent socializing over wine fills Dominique
with energetic joy that starts bringing her back to life.

Dominique loves the West Coast and marries a gay man to stay Dominique finds a new and welcoming home and community in L.A.
in the U.S. Americans, and especially lesbians, are drawn to her that gives her the love, support, and safety she needs to heal. She’s
because she’s British and beautiful. She stays with Gaia’s recovered enough now to let go of the shame that prevented her
friends for a couple of years until she can afford to move out. As from reconnecting with her old friends in London. The support group
soon as she’s stable, she invites Amma to visit. Amma never is likewise a new home and community for Dominique. It’s critical in
rubbed it in that she was right about Nzinga. Dominique starts helping her overcome her internalized blame. It’s where she comes
attending a women’s support group for survivors of domestic to understand that her desire to be “rescued” by Nzinga was rooted
abuse, a therapeutic outlet where she realizes she sought in that desire to have the caring home she never had growing up.
mothering from Nzinga that growing up—as one of 10 She was in search of someone who could fill that void in her life.
children— she lacked.
Dominique later hears from Gaia that Nzinga went on a violent Dominique creates another community within her larger L.A.
rampage after Dominique escaped. The police were called and community with the women’s music festival. It becomes an
Nzinga was evicted. Dominique starts a Women’s Arts Festival affirming, feminist space that reinforces Dominique’s identity as a
in L.A., and years later meets Nzinga’s last girlfriend, Sahara, radical, Black feminist, one that was so central to her understanding
there. Sahara was likewise trapped in Nzinga’s cycle of abuse of herself and that Nzinga had convinced her she lacked. It’s clear
until Nzinga died after suffering a massive stroke. This news that it’s Nzinga who lacked a true feminist approach to life. Nzinga’s
leaves Dominique both relieved and sad. Dominique meets abuse was rooted in the abuse she suffered in her childhood. Those
Laverne, her wife, at the support group. They share a deep early experiences trapped her in a cycle of violence in her adulthood.
intellectual bond before becoming lovers, careful to respect She made her lovers suffer the way she did all those years ago. The
each other’s free will. They adopt baby twins and marry once it cycle of violence only ends when Nzinga dies. From a distance of
is legal. It’s been 30 years since Dominique arrived in the U.S., several years, Dominique, who has always been perceptive of life’s
the place she calls home. contradictions and complexities, can feel both relieved that this
cycle of abuse has finally ended but also sad because she knows
Nzinga’s behavior was rooted in the trauma she never resolved. Her
new community of domestic violence survivors leads her to Laverne,
the woman who becomes the true caring and supportive home she’s
been searching for ever since she left home at 16.
CHAPTER 2: CAROLE
As Carole Williams walks through Liverpool station, she thinks Carole is a master of façade. She’s able to maintain a seemingly
about people who throw themselves under trains. She flawless exterior as a successful woman in the fast-paced and elite
remembers the times she stood on the platform contemplating world of finance while crumbling on the inside. It’s clear she’s often
suicide, just one leap away, while appearing normal from the been dissatisfied with the drudgery and stress of modern living
outside. Now, however, she’s alive and looking forward. Today within an unforgiving capitalist society, but today she’s able to blend
she’s a “willing orchestral player in the cacophony” of London’s in and keep up with its demands. Carole’s obsession with the news,
rush hour. Carole is a workaholic, constantly immersed in the and particularly bad news, reveals her deep-seated anxiety that’s
world of finance. She thinks social media is a waste of time. rooted in an experience she suffered as a young girl. The reference to
Instead, she gets stuck online in the endless deluge of news, "little girls who ask for it” suggests that she was sexually assaulted,
using it to avoid sleep which is when “bad things happen to little as it’s a phrase society often uses to blame women and girls for their
girls who ask for it.” own assaults.

Carole is on her way to a meeting with an exceedingly rich As one of few Black women in a position of power within the white,
client from Hong Kong, worried that he’ll read her as the male-dominated world of finance, Carole is often mistaken as
person who’s meant to deliver office refreshments rather than someone who works to serve the men in charge. This is one among
run the meeting. She’s used to clients looking past her or many unfortunately common microaggressions that people of color
sexualizing her. She remembers a client who went so far as to who work in elite, white supremacist spaces experience, and these
mislead her into a lunch in his hotel room, undermining her experiences complicate simple narratives of meritocracy that
“hard-won professionalism.” Today she is determined to project suggest hard work and achievement within society’s mainstream
positivity, but she’s flooded with memories of past institutions can alone eradicate inequality. Additionally, like many
microaggressions—businesspeople who are surprised that women in male-dominated workplaces, Carole is sexualized by her
she’s “so articulate;” customs officers that pull her aside while colleagues. Her identity as a Black woman specifically compounds
her colleagues pass through unbothered. that misogynistic sexualization as the hyper-sexualization of Black
women has deep, historical roots within white-supremacist
societies, dating back to the era of slavery.
Carole is desperate to delete these memories, to be one of the Carole, and all other women of color, carry the immense weight of
privileged members of society unencumbered with emotional the racism they suffer daily, a weight that white people don’t have to
baggage born of experiences like the time she was strip carry. This added weight often makes daily life much harder for
searched in an airport, abroad on another business trip. The people of color. Additionally, these microaggressions haunt Carole
physical invasion brought back debilitating memories from the and often retrigger the sexual trauma she suffered as a young girl.
first party she attended at her friend LaTisha’s house, Carole grew up with a smart, strong mother, who instilled those
memories she’d shut out for years. At 13 Carole wasn’t traits in her. The trauma she suffered interrupted this safe and
interested in boys or parties. She was the “Super Geek” of her empowering upbringing.
class who loved math, just like her single mother, Bummi. She
was enamored with her mother’s strength and mathematical
intelligence. Carole loved math because she was the best at it
and this set her apart from her peers.
In Carole’s flashback to the party, she’s drunk for the first time Carole is young and innocent, and Trey, much older, picks up on that
when she spots a college student, Trey, who she thinks is much vulnerability. Carole, who has been relatively sheltered so far, gets
more attractive than boys her age. She starts dancing for him, swept up in the excitement that comes with receiving male
her top showing off her newly developed breasts. She’s so attention for the first time. Naively, she thinks she might even be in
drunk she falls, and Trey swoops in to help her. He puts his arm love with Trey, the first boy who has really ever noticed her. His
around her, tells her that she’s hot, and Carole wonders if this is attention gives her a brief sense of power that immediately
love. He takes her outside, his arm tightening around her head dissipates once they step outside the party. His tight hand around
until she feels like she’s floating. She hears other voices around her head leaves her feeling like she is floating, literally separating her
her, then is lying naked on the grass. She closes her eyes, further from her body, which already feels out of her own control
suddenly yearning for sleep, but when she opens them again because she’s so drunk. Carole dissociates during her sexual assault,
discovers she’s been blindfolded. Her body is taken away from detaching from her body completely in order to survive the horrific
her as she’s sexually assaulted. In pain, she thinks of her trauma. She tries to retreat into her favorite number, into math,
favorite number until it stops. Then the boys are “gone and so which is a steady, comforting constant in her life. When the assault
was she.” is over and the boys leave, they take who Carole was before the
assault with them. Her very self and identity have been stolen.

Carole never tells anyone about the assault. She thinks it was Patriarchal society commonly blames women for their own assaults,
her fault for wearing sexy clothes. She sinks into depression, suggesting that it’s their fault for being out late or dressed a
losing her passion for learning, until exactly one year later she’s particular way. Carole has internalized these beliefs. Her depression
overcome with motivation to escape poverty, the projects, and threatens her once bright future until one day her desire to achieve
the futures she imagines will trap her peers: low-paying jobs, upward mobility reignites and supersedes her depression. It’s in this
pregnancy, single-motherhood. She wants to prove her moment that Carole decides to reform the system from the inside.
teachers wrong, especially Mrs. King, the teacher who’d once She is going to pursue success within mainstream society not only to
praised Carole for her intelligence but had given up on her avoid being trapped in the cycle of poverty, but to prove everyone
once she lost her passion to depression. wrong.
Mrs. King is old and has a reputation for being strict. However, Although Mrs. King is Black herself, she sets Carole down the path
Carole knows she is the best person to ask for help. Risking of assimilation, revealing that assimilation is not only imposed by
reproach, she asks Mrs. King for advice and is surprised when white people, but by people of color who themselves have
she agrees to help— so long as Carole adheres to strict rules, assimilated and believe in it. This assimilation requires a separation
among them to stop skipping school and to change her social from her friends, the people who were once her community, but who
circle. Mrs. King harasses her for the next four years, for things are seen as bad influences who will interfere with Carole’s ability to
as incidental as laughing too loud or walking too fast. When conform and assimilate for success. Mrs. King polices Carole’s
Carole earns an interview at Oxford, the admissions tutor is behavior to make sure how she comports herself adheres to white,
especially impressed by her achievements given the subpar middle-class expectations. When Carole gets accepted to Oxford,
conditions at her high school. When Carole is accepted to Mrs. King makes it all about her. She wants to be known as Carole’s
Oxford, Mrs. King takes all the credit. At an end of year savior, and this problematic desire for recognition undermines
assembly she makes a speech about her dedication to Carole, Carole’s achievement and her empowerment.
rather than letting Carole shine.
Carole arrives at Oxford, relieved Bummi couldn’t drop her off Carole wants to keep her Nigerian roots separate from her new life
because she’d come in a colorful Nigerian outfit looking like an at Oxford because she knows this will make assimilation easier.
embarrassing, “mad African mother.” There are very few brown Assimilation is a hard task here because she stands out not only
people at Oxford, and Carole stands out as the darkest. Out of among her predominantly white classmates, but the other students
place among her privileged peers, she withdraws into herself of color as well, due to the colorism that Carole is subject to as
feeling worthless and invisible. When she overhears a student someone with darker skin. As a Black woman on this white
call her “ghetto” she wants to speak up for herself but instead supremacist campus, Carole is both hyper-visible and invisible. Her
starts questioning if she’d heard correctly. Campus security race makes her stand out and when people notice her they
eyes her with suspicion and a classmate assumes she sells automatically stereotype her. At the same time she feels invisible,
drugs. ignored, and overlooked by her privileged classmates whose lives
don’t have room for someone like her.

Home on break, Carole tells Bummi she doesn’t want to return Bummi dreams of a better life for her child and wants her to take full
to Oxford because she doesn’t belong. Her mother tells her she advantage of the opportunities Oxford has to offer. Like many
must overcome these early setbacks to ascend to the heights immigrant parents, she highlights the sacrifice and suffering she
that Black women like Oprah, Diane Abbot, and Valerie Amos endured for Carole’s sake. Carole, like many second generation
have achieved. She tells her that she didn’t come to the U.K. so children, is left feeling guilty. To pay her mother back she herself
Carole could give up the opportunities she sacrificed so much must return to Oxford and endure her own suffering. Bummi
for. She tells her that she has to go back to school and find her references three Black women who have achieved mainstream
people, even if they end up being white people. That Oxford is a success, and uses their stories to convince Carole that she can work
battle, and it’s her “British birthright” to fight them “as a true her way down that path to success, too. Bummi wants Carole to
Nigerian.” claim her British birthright, which is her hard-earned place at
Oxford, while fighting to survive and thrive in that space as a
Nigerian. Bummi still believes it is possible for Carole to balance her
identities as both a Brit and a Nigerian.
Carole returns to Oxford ready to fight and ready to forge Carole returns more determined than ever to successfully assimilate
connections. She surprises herself when she makes friends and into her new environment. It’s the only way forward she sees if she
gets a boyfriend named Marcus. He’s a white Kenyan with “a wants to escape her misery and isolation. Although Carole has
thing for black girls,” which Carole doesn’t mind because she is never worked through her trauma from her assault, and so is still
so happy to be desired. She keeps her relationship a secret very fearful of men, she’s happy to be desired, treated, and showed
from her mom who wants her to marry a Nigerian. Carole was off by Marcus. Because she is so unused to being desired, she
scared of men after her assault so is especially surprised that overlooks the way Marcus fetishizes her Blackness.
she was able to enter a romantic and sexual relationship with
him. Marcus grants her social credit and she loves the way he
proudly shows her off and treats her to special dates.
From her new friends Carole learns to change her speech Although Carole doesn’t want to lose herself completely, she’s
patterns. “Who was you talking to?” becomes “to whom were shedding pieces of her identity that are seen as stereotypically
you speaking?” She eats what they eat, discovering foods like Black. She stops speaking Black vernacular English and assimilates
sushi, asparagus, and brioche. She doesn’t want to lose herself to what society deems “proper” or “correct” English. She likewise
entirely but wants to be a little more like them. She gets rid of changes her appearance. While some of those changes seem to
her long nails that make grabbing things difficult and her affirm and free her, others, namely choosing to straighten her hair,
weaves that irritate her scalp. Ridding herself of these feels she makes because she knows they’ll help her succeed in a white
freeing. She straightens her hair, and when Marcus tells her he supremacist world. Black women are often policed in the workplace
likes it better natural, she replies that she’ll never get a job with for wearing their hair in certain styles. Carole’s decision is significant
natural hair. Carole visits her wealthy classmates’ homes and because hair is often a symbol of self-expression and pride for Black
learns what life and leisure in the upper classes looks like. women. She feels forced to trade that piece of who she is in order to
find mainstream success. Becoming successful for her means being
forced to give up pieces of her Black identity.

Jolted from her flashback, Carole exits Liverpool station, Although she no longer blames herself, Carole’s sexual assault still
heading towards the bank where she works. She thinks of haunts and threatens to drown her. Carole can’t escape the assault
Freddy still asleep at home. Carole is an avid runner, and she because she can’t escape her body. It’s only when she’s dancing that
runs to escape drowning in the memory of her rape at 13, for she can temporarily leave the body that, to her, has been scarred
which she’d blamed herself for too long. Carole gets to work, a and tainted since that day. At work, as she knew all those years ago
place where she has to dress in heels, where she relies on her when she straightened her hair in university, Carole has to put on a
morning mantra to power her through: “I am highly presentable, costume in order to fit in and succeed in this patriarchal, elite
likeable, clubbable, relatable, promotable and successful.” Carole society. Her mantra is a way of talking herself out of her imposter
thinks about how much she loves dancing to Fela Kuti’s syndrome.
polyrhythmic and political music. When she dances, she leaves
her body and it becomes hers alone with no one watching or
judging. She feels free.
Carole walks into the building where she joins her boss, Brian, The same type of sexual violence Carole experienced at 13 follows
on the elevator. She remembers going out for drinks with him her into adulthood at the bank when Brian propositions her. Like
her first year at the bank, and his long-winded monologue most women, Carole has to contend with sexual harassment in her
about how he worked his way up to success after growing up in workplace. Additionally, Brian admitting that meritocracy is a myth
a poor family. Brian was going to get Carole, a meticulous in elite banking represents the myth of meritocracy on a larger scale.
worker, quickly promoted to Associate because he believes The white men in power in society, like Brian, perpetuate false
meritocracy is a myth in banking. He told her that the days of narratives of meritocracy that suggest society is equal, as long as
women having to sleep with their superiors to advance are long people work hard enough. This myth of meritocracy fuels
gone. He got drunker and eventually propositioned Carole, immigrants’ hopes and dreams, and especially impacts second-
telling her that he has room for a third woman in his life. generation children of immigrants like Carole, who grow up under
intense pressure to work hard and make good on their parents’
sacrifices. But just like Brian, the rich, white, and powerful know
that meritocracy is a myth for all but the few like Carole who give up
so much of themselves in order to succeed.
In the elevator, Carole and Brian say polite hellos. She can tell Perhaps because he fears Carole will expose him in a society that
he still wants her, but she was still quickly promoted to increasingly calls men out for harassment in the workplace, Brian
Associate even though she turned down his advances. Now, promotes Carole. Against all odds and in the face of the many
she’s a Vice President, something her mom is incredibly proud challenges that her intersectional identity as a Black, second-
of. She stares out the giant glass windows of the office, studying generation woman presents, Carole has made it to a position of
the Millennium Bridge and the pedestrians crossing it power typically reserved for white men. She’s reforming society’s
immersed in their phones more than the world around them. institutions from within and is making English society more diverse
She thinks about how life is all about posting online now. She and equitable. Her success makes her first-generation mother
thinks people will be cyborgs one day, easily controlled so that incredibly proud. She’s lived up to Bummi’s expectations and repaid
men won’t commit terrible acts of rape so girls won’t have to her for her sacrifices. Carole ruminates on the artificiality of human
live feeling that it’s their fault. life and connection in the modern era. But rather than a fearful
foreboding of a dystopian future, Carole hopes that technology can
become more powerful than men. For Carole, the prospect of a
future society controlled by cyborgs is better than the current one
controlled by abusive and misogynistic men.

Carole sees a plane flying towards the airport over the projects From a great height and distance, Carole looks down, both
where she grew up. The plane makes Carole wonder what physically and metaphorically, on the projects where she grew up
happened to LaTisha, who she hasn’t see since she was in high alongside LaTisha. Carole has separated herself from her old home
school. She marvels at how they’d once been such good friends and identity so completely that she now views LaTisha through the
and assumes LaTisha must be a “babymother” or in a gang. same stereotypical lenses that her classmates at Oxford once
Carole’s friends from college are all high achieving viewed her through. Her own internalized racism comes out in the
professionals like her, and she doesn’t see them often. She way she looks down on and dismisses LaTisha. The art museum
enjoys a few hobbies. She gazes out at the Tate art museum, reveals that Carole gave up her ability to imagine and dream in
thinking about the vast imagination of artists and doubting she order to pursue the rigid and limited path of assimilation and
has any imagination herself. mainstream success. As the second-generation child of immigrants
desperate to escape poverty, this is yet another sacrifice she’s made.
Carole looks out at the National Theater, where a play about Carole’s experiences reveal the ways in which race complicates love
Black lesbian warriors is premiering. Freddy bought tickets, and romance in white supremacist society. While her mother
joking that it’ll inspire her to have a threesome. She laughs at expected her to date Black, specifically Nigerian, men, Carole has
the joke, enamored with his humor and the way he intuits and spent most of her adulthood in predominantly white spaces, so
respects all her needs. Freddy is one of the two boyfriends didn’t have the opportunity to meet many potential Black partners.
she’s had. She’s never dated a Black man, not because she didn’t She found that colorism rendered her undesirable in the eyes of the
want to, but because they weren’t interested in her. There few Black men that attended Oxford with her. She understands that
weren’t many at her university, and the ones there didn’t go for their colorism is rooted in their own internalized racism and struggle
girls as dark as her. She doesn’t blame them because she sees it to succeed in a white supremacist world. Just as she felt she had no
as part of what they have to do to survive in a world that views choice but to surrender pieces of her Black identity in order to
them as a threat. assimilate, she understands that they too are trying to distance
themselves from their Blackness, and that dating her would
interfere with that objective.
Carole fell in love with Freddy fast. He grew up very wealthy Freddy lived his entire life in rich, white, privileged spaces. Getting to
and so was fascinated with Carole’s impoverished and difficult know Carole is the first time he’s getting to know the world that
upbringing. He admired how she’d overcome so many obstacles exists outside of his own privileged bubble. Carole and Freddy’s
to get where she is now. Freddy made it to where he is now, a journey to the point in time when their lives intersected were polar
corporate position, through his family’s wealth and opposites. Carole worked hard and sacrificed so much of herself to
connections. Carole lived with Bummi after college to save achieve what Freddy was born into. Freddy strays from
money, then moved into Freddy’s house once they were conventional gender roles in order to help her along on her arduous
engaged. He took on the household duties so that she could path to elite success. Freddy’s parents’ disappointment highlights
pursue her career. His parents, who wanted him to marry how racism shows up in and complicates interracial relationships.
someone with an elite lineage like theirs, were shocked when
he announced his engagement to Carole.

CHAPTER 2: BUMMI
When Carole comes home from her first semester at Oxford in As a first-generation immigrant, Bummi has sacrificed so much so
tears, begging not to go back, Bummi insists that she return, that Carole could have access to better opportunities in life. An elite
not yet knowing how dramatically Oxford will change her. Soon university like Oxford is the pinnacle of opportunity and upward
her voice loses its Nigerian power, her body language changes, mobility, so Bummi won’t let her give it up. Simultaneously, Bummi
she looks down on their apartment, and she starts buying expects Carole to embrace and preserve their Nigerian culture.
expensive clothes. Eventually, she stops coming home at all, What she doesn’t anticipate is that balancing those two identities is
spending holidays at a friend’s country estate instead. Bummi often impossible for second-generation children of immigrants.
sobs at Carole’s graduation and wishes Augustine, Carole’s Bummi cries at Carole’s graduation both because she’s proud of her
father, were there to see. Bummi hopes Carole will embrace successes but also because she’s mourning the fact that this degree
her Nigerian culture, will eat with her hands again instead of cost Carole her Nigerian culture and identity. She holds out hope
looking at her mom like “a savage from the jungle” for doing so. that Carole will reclaim them once she leaves university. However,
Carole has so completely separated herself from her culture that she
judges her mother for eating with her hands. She’s internalized the
racism of the white society around her.
Carole moves back in with Bummi in London. She hasn’t Despite Bummi’s hopes that returning home from college will also
brought home any boyfriends, and Bummi reminds her how mean Carole returns to her Nigerian culture, the divide between
important it is to get a good job and a Nigerian husband. Carole first-generation mother and second-generation child persists.
goes out partying and Bummi is worried she’s sleeping around Bummi’s understanding of gender roles is more traditional than
like “tarty English girls.” Carole quickly finds her respectable job Carole’s. Carole lives up to her mother’s expectations by getting a
at the bank, and Bummi finds three eligible Nigerian men that respectable and well-paying job. She achieves the upward mobility
Carole refuses to meet. Bummi warns that past 30 she’ll be too that immigrant parents want for their children. On the other hand,
old to find someone. Despite Carole’s partying, she and Bummi however, Carole defies Bummi’s expectations that she marry a
get along well for those few years after graduation, until one Nigerian man by getting engaged to a white man.
day Carole announces she’s engaged to a white man, Freddy.
Bummi is furious and asks Carole why she’s spitting on her For Bummi, getting engaged to a white man is a betrayal of Carole’s
father’s life, her people, and bringing shame upon the family. Nigerian identity, heritage, and culture. She betrays her people by
She wishes Augustine was alive to convince Carole otherwise, siding with their oppressors. Bummi worries that Carole’s lack of a
and wonders if Carole would have turned out different if she father figure is what led her to this decision. Perhaps if she’d grown
hadn’t had to raise her alone in the U.K. She feels as helpless as up with her strong, Nigerian father figure, then she would have
she did when Carole sank into her deep depression at 13. She wanted the same for herself in a husband. In part, Bummi blames
remembers how glad she was when Carole reemerged as the herself for encouraging Carole to pursue mainstream success within
girl with good grades who got into the “famous university for English society by going to Oxford. The three framed acceptance
rich people.” Bummi was so proud that she made three framed letters represent the overwhelming pride Bummi felt when Carole
copies of her acceptance letter. This was before Bummi achieved what every immigrant parent dreams of. However, she
realized that Carole’s going to Oxford meant turning her back didn’t realize that dream came at the cost of the culture that Bummi
on her culture. holds so dear. In just one generation their Nigerian identity and
culture has been lost to assimilation and whiteness.

In her anger, Bummi has cornered Carole in the kitchen. She Bummi realizes that their Nigerian identity matters more than
trades her anger for concern, explaining that marrying a white success in a white supremacist, English society. Material success
man means losing her culture. She’s Nigerian above all else and seems arbitrary compared to the spiritual satisfaction that comes
there’s no use in living a successful life in England if she loses from maintaining a strong identity and connection to one’s
her identity. Carole remains unmoved, so Bummi decides to ancestors. Bummi’s anger is so fierce that she retreats into silence,
ignore her. That night, when Carole expects that, as always, temporarily cutting Carole out of her life to ultimately salvage the
they’ll cook dinner together, Bummi’s thrown out all their food. relationship in the long run. She lost her husband to England, after
Bummi ignores Carole for almost three months, afraid of what he worked himself to death just to survive as a first-generation
will come out of her mouth if she speaks. She doesn’t want to immigrant. Now she’s lost her daughter to her success that she
lose Carole, the only person left in her life whom she loves. She sacrificed so much for. It’s a biting irony.
breaks her silence on the day that Carole announces that she’s
moving in with Freddy.
Bummi gestures to the rice she’s sifting through and tells Bummi’s anger stems from the way that immigrants are treated by
Carole that English people give immigrants like her dirty looks white people in England. She’s endured so much racism and
for buying affordable food from immigrant-owned stores discrimination from white people that she can’t understand why
rather than fancy packages from overpriced supermarkets. The Carole would marry into a rich white family that no doubt are the
point, she explains, is that no matter how “high and mighty” or kind of people that judge immigrants for both their class status and
“English-English” she pretends to be, no matter how “English- their race. Bummi understands that no matter how successful a
English” her husband, Carole is forever Nigerian. Bummi Black person may be within English society, white people will still
threatens to beat her if she ever refers to her as “Mother” see their Blackness first above all else, and with it will attach
again, a post-Oxford change. She’s her mama and will be stereotypes, microaggressions, and discrimination. Carole adopting
forever. Carole is sobbing, happy that Bummi is finally speaking English language and calling Bummi “mother” represents how
to her again. When Carole leaves for work Bummi realizes that English society and the pressure to assimilate into white culture
soon Carole will “belong completely to them.” threatens to destroy the relationships between first-generation
parents and their second-generation children. Bummi realizes that
Carole marrying a white man means she’s lost her completely to
white, Western society.
Bummi thinks back on her own childhood. She and her mother, Bummi thinks back on her childhood and the suffering she endured
Iyatunde, ran from their home in the Niger Delta after her to get to the point where she is in life, the life that granted Carole
father, Moses, was killed while illegally refining diesel. This was the opportunities to be successful but ultimately led to her
the only option for people living in the Delta, where big oil assimilation. Bummi’s oppression at the hands of white supremacist
companies destroy the land that produces profits and fuels the society started long before she migrated to England. Bummi’s father
world. Moses’s family takes his farmland after his death, was killed by the white man’s greed that has destroyed the Niger
claiming that Iyatunde wasn’t his legal wife and that they don’t Delta in order to reap immense profits and fuel the daily lives of
want to see her again. They abandon their hut and go to live white Westerners in countries that import the Delta’s oil. In addition
with Bummi’s grandparents. Iyatunde’s father wants to marry to enduring the effects of white supremacy’s global reach, Bummi
Bummi off as soon as she hits puberty, but Iyatunde doesn’t had to contend with sexism in her early life. Like her mother, Bummi
want this traditional life for her daughter. was expected to marry young, but her mother fights back and
disrupts this cycle of tradition that keeps women beholden to
men.

The two sneak away early one morning, making a treacherous There are clear parallels between Iyatunde and Bummi’s mother-
journey across burning oilfields to Lagos, where they settle in daughter relationship and later Bummi and Carole’s mother-
Makoko, a floating slum. They share a bamboo hut on stilts and daughter relationship. Both Iyatunde and Bummi moved to new
a canoe with another family. Iyatunde begs for work around places where they were forced to work hard and live in poverty to
Lagos, and Bummi follows, embarrassed. Finally, she finds work give their daughters a chance at a better life. Iyatunde wanted
at a sawmill. She funds Bummi’s education, determined that her Bummi to have an education and a husband, just like Bummi
daughter will one day have a good job and an educated encouraged Carole to stay at Oxford and insisted she marry a
husband. When Bummi is 15, her mother dies in an accident at Nigerian man. Ultimately, Iyatunde died in order to give Bummi
the mill. greater opportunities in life, just as Augustine died for Carole and
Bummi sacrificed so much.
Bummi survives alone in Lagos until a distant cousin, Aunty When Bummi moves in with her aunt, she’s thrown into a new and
Ekio, offers to take her in and fund her schooling in exchange unfamiliar realm of the upper-class, just like Carole experienced
for housework and nannying. Bummi arrives at Aunty Ekio’s when she arrived at Oxford. Bummi’s new home is inhospitable, too,
expecting a warm family greeting, and instead is told to be but for vastly different reasons. Bummi puts up with her aunt’s
grateful for her Aunty’s offer. Aunty Ekio’s house is the first incessant demands because she has no other home to turn to. Since
concrete house Bummi’s ever been in, and Aunty lives a life of both her father and mother’s deaths, Bummi has been continuously
luxury and leisure. She bosses Bummi around, commanding her displaced, without a stable home and community.
to complete tasks as minor as changing the TV channel. Despite
her aunt’s harshness, Bummi has nightmares about losing this
home, too. She enrolls in university to study mathematics, but
dozes off in classes, exhausted after waiting on her aunt all day.
One day a teaching assistant, Augustine Williams, wakes her Bummi describes Augustine as completing her because he gives her
up, calls her pretty, and invites her to lunch. They quickly fall in the home that she has lacked since her parents died. Augustine’s
love. Unlike other university boys, Augustine respects Bummi’s progressive background has honed his feminist outlook on love and
body and waits a long time to kiss her. Augustine completes dating. Bummi’s mother’s sacrifice has paid off. She’s both in college
Bummi and her loneliness fades. Augustine grew up in a and with an educated man who respects her autonomy as a woman.
progressive family with educated and well-off parents. When Although both Bummi and Augustine are highly educated, they
he proposes to Bummi, his parents accept her wholeheartedly have to leave Nigeria to find work, highlighting the economic
regardless of the fact that she has no family or dowry. Unable realities and lack of opportunities in developing, post-colonial
to find work in Nigeria, even with his PhD in economics, countries. So, as soon as Bummi’s found a home in Augustine, she is
Augustine dreams of moving to England where he envisions a forced to leave another home, her native Nigeria. Augustine believes
successful future as a businessman. that England is a land of opportunity where an educated man like
him will be able to succeed.

Bummi and Augustine immigrate to the U.K. where he’s unable Bummi and Augustine arrive in the U.K. and discover what many
to find work and forced to drive a taxi. He dreams of saving highly educated immigrants do upon arrival: their degrees are
money to open an import-export business, but that dream is deemed worthless because they’re from a university in a developing
quickly crushed when the Nigerian economy nosedives and he nation. British people see them as two Black immigrants meant to
has to send money home. Both Bummi and Augustine quickly work for the English, not alongside them. Augustine’s dreams come
see through the façade of meritocracy in England. Augustine crashing down as he realizes that meritocracy and the narrative
puts up with passengers that look down on him, while people that immigrants can succeed so long as they work hard are just
view Bummi as a cleaner, not an educated woman. Her name, myths. Like many immigrants, Augustine has to send money back
nationality, and “Third World” degree leave her unemployable, home to his family, where his British pounds are highly valuable.
and the constant stream of job rejections she suffers is why her Forced into service jobs, they work hard to try and make that myth a
daughter, Carole, doesn’t even have a Nigerian middle name. reality for their second-generation daughter. Part of striving to make
that myth reality is already setting Carole down the path of
assimilation by giving her an English name. Surrendering pieces of
their culture becomes a survival mechanism. Now there’s one less
way for Carole to be discriminated against.
Augustine’s mother reminds him to be a good father. He’s Augustine defies stereotypes of men as distant and disengaged
affectionate and loving rather than authoritarian and father figures. His feminist identity extends to his parenting. Despite
emotionless. Bummi loves how Augustine fathers Carole, and is all that has happened since they came to the U.K., Augustine still
heartbroken when he hopes that Carole will make it in the U.K. holds out hope that they can make the myth of meritocracy real for
even if they can’t. Both Bummi and Augustine work hard, until Carole. This optimism breaks Bummi’s heart because she feels this
Augustine works himself to death, suffering a heart attack dream is too far out of reach. Augustine’s death represents the
while driving his cab on New Year’s Day. When Bummi sees extreme sacrifices immigrants make for their children as well as the
Augustine laid out in his casket she loses her faith. Without terrible labor conditions immigrants are forced to endure just to
Augustine and without God she’s completely alone. In the face survive in their new countries. His death directly parallels
of her new life as a single mother, Bummi is determined to open Iyatunde’s. He dies while working to give his daughter more
her own cleaning company. opportunities in life. Augustine’s death, so much like her mother’s,
breaks Bummi but at the same time inspires her to make
Augustine’s dream of owning a business in the U.K. come true.
Bummi dreams of employing immigrant women from all over Bummi’s cleaning company has a feminist mission that parallels
the world. She dreams that they’ll become the “Worldwide both Amma and Dominique’s Bush Woman Theatre Company as
Army of Women Cleaners” and will fight the oil companies out well as The Last Amazon of Dahomey. Like the women warriors of
of Nigeria, and restore the Delta where her father will fish, her Dahomey, Bummi envisions an army of women who will defend and
mother will take it easy, and Augustine is a Green Finance restore her native Nigeria, ridding it of the destruction wrought by
Economist. Bummi needs money to make her dream into a the neo-colonial oil business. Like the Bush Woman Theatre
reality, and the only person she knows with money is Bishop Company, Bummi dreams of giving jobs to brown, immigrant
Aderami Obi. Obi objectifies and harasses the women in his women overlooked and discriminated against in white British
congregation, including Bummi after Augustine dies. Bummi society. The starting costs of opening a business are what stand in
feels it’s her right to ask him for a loan after years of donating the way of this dream. Bummi must turn to Bishop Obi who,
to the church, a scheme that Bummi knew filled Obi’s pockets. although both Black and an immigrant himself, still has more power
than Bummi because he has male privilege in a patriarchal society.

Bummi and Obi meet to discuss the loan. She has sex with him, Bummi uses the only asset she has to exchange with Bishop Obi for
pretending to enjoy it, and afterwards he gives her an envelope a loan. She compromises her body for her dream as well as for
of cash that she will pay back with low interests over two years. Carole, again highlighting the extreme lengths immigrant parents go
This is her first transaction as a businesswoman. At home that to for their children. Bummi is traumatized by her sexual encounter
night she runs a bath with salts, and bathes for hours until she’s with Obi. She cleanses her body to try and reclaim it from his
sufficiently clean of Obi. She never tells anyone what she’s done degradation.
to provide for herself and her daughter. When she closes her
eyes, she’s transported back to that moment with Obi. She feels
his hot breath on her body as he calls her a whore and “spear[s]
the most sacred part of her body.”
BW Cleaning Services International’s first client is Penelope Penelope’s servant’s quarters highlights how society hasn’t
Halifax, who lives in an old house with servants’ quarters in the progressed nearly as far as mainstream narratives claim. Although
attic, a vestige from a time when people could afford more than the circumstances and language have changed, Black people are
a weekly cleaner. Penelope’s wealth is greater than any Bummi still forced into positions of service to white people. Bummi is
has ever seen. Penelope is a retired teacher who used to work stunned by Penelope’s wealth, just as Carole will be stunned by her
at Carole’s school, and when Bummi goes to share this fact with classmates’ wealth years later at Oxford. Penelope stereotypes
her, Penelope tells her she’s meant to work, not socialize. She Bummi, associating her Blackness with criminality and assuming
tells her to never open any drawers, cupboards, pockets, or that she’ll steal from her drawers and bags. Bummi is forced to bite
bags. Bummi bites her tongue, suppressing her desire to cuss her tongue because defending herself against this gross
Penelope out. Penelope follows Bummi around the house discrimination could cost her her business. Penelope maintains her
divulging stories about her sexist ex-husbands. Bummi feels white supremacy by silencing Bummi, but then quickly breaks her
bad for Penelope, clearly lonely without her children, as she own rule to unload her emotional baggage on Bummi. This follows a
cleans up her dozens of empty wine bottles. pattern of white women demanding emotional labor of Black
women. Penelope complains about her sexist husbands while
simultaneously oppressing a Black woman. This situates Penelope
within a long history of white feminists oppressing and silencing
Black women, whose racism blinds them from seeing their
intersecting oppressions. Bummi, Carole, and Penelope’s stories
surprisingly intersect through Carole’s school.
Bummi accrues regular clients and has 10 immigrant woman Bummi and Carole both have successful careers. In their own ways
employees by the time Carole starts working at the bank. Sister each has achieved what Augustine always dreamed of. Bummi and
Omofe is her best employee. Omofe is a single mother after her Omofe are drawn together as single, immigrant mothers. Like many
husband returned to Nigeria to live with his second wife, and children who have been abandoned by a father figure, Omofe’s sons
she pledges to poison him if he returns to the U.K. Omofe are struggling emotionally. Omofe recognizes that they’re at risk of
laments that her boys are getting into trouble without their being trapped by the fates that commonly befall Black men in white
father around to discipline them. She can’t control them and supremacist societies. White society manufactures the conditions
they’re getting in trouble with the law, headed, she thinks, to that sentence Black men to death or life in prison. England has
early deaths by a gangland shootout or life in prison. Bummi failed to deliver on the promise of a better life for her second-
tells her to send them back to Nigeria to attend boarding generation children, so Omofe sends them back home where they’ll
school, and Omofe does. be free of the racism that condemns them and threatens their
freedom.

Now both Bummi and Omofe are alone, and Bummi finds Bummi, who has felt without a home since Augustine’s death, finds
herself falling in love with her. What should make her feel bad a new home in Omofe. Bummi understands her bisexuality as a way
just makes her feel right. One night Bummi sleeps over at of filling a void that’s existed in her life since Augustine’s death
Omofe’s. Omofe emerges from the shower wrapped in a towel without betraying her love for him.
and invites Bummi to sleep in her bed before dropping her
towel and climbing in bed. Bummi joins her, and when they have
sex Omofe’s body feels like home. Bummi stays at Omofe’s as
often as she can, realizing that she’s satisfying a hunger
unsatiated since Augustine’s death. She never found another
husband because Augustine was irreplaceable, but Omofe is
different because she’s a woman.
When Omofe’s children return from Nigeria, she and Bummi Bummi is able to set aside her internalized homophobia when her
have to meet at Bummi’s place, but Bummi feels ashamed bisexuality exists outside of the home and life she once shared with
sleeping with a woman in the apartment she’d shared with Carole and Augustine. But when she's forced to merge these two
Carole and Augustine. She cuts Omofe off without explanation, homes together, she’s overcome with shame. In her mind, these two
and eventually Omofe moves on to another cleaning company lives cannot coexist. Bummi loses another home, this time not to
and shows up at church with Sister Moto. Bummi sits behind death but to the suffocating norms of society. The jealousy and
them and feels the intimacy that radiates between them, sadness she feels when she witnesses the intimacy between Omofe
wondering if other churchgoers noticed the same between her and her new partner reveals how much she truly loved this woman.
and Omofe. She’s surprised that she’s so upset about Omofe
moving on so quickly.
Soon Bummi starts a relationship with Kofi, a retired Ghanian Kofi offers Bummi another home. He is loving and supportive, and,
who starts working for her to make extra money. For their first unlike Bishop Obi, respectful of Bummi and her body. His
date he takes her to the Ritzy for a Ghanian fusion night. progressiveness leaves Bummi in awe, but also suggests he might
Bummi is unused to seeing people of different races socialize, not be upset if he were to ever find out about her past with Sister
and people being openly gay, but notices Kofi is comfortable. Omofe.
She loves the way Kofi looks at her. When he asks her about her
life she simply shrugs, and he assures her that he’ll listen when
she’s ready to talk. Kofi continues to take her out, cooks for her,
which she loves, and tells her that he’d like to enter a sexual
relationship with her after a respectable amount of time has
passed.
Bummi asks herself if he is what she wants. She questions if she Bummi is unsure if she should be with a Ghanian, as she’s breaking
should be with a Ghanian man. She decides that Kofi is what is her own conviction that Nigerians should be in relationships with
being offered to her. Carole approves of him and suggests it’s other Nigerians. She accepts Kofi because he’s what’s being offered
time for Bummi to remove her wedding ring, which takes to her in this life that has taken so much from her. These losses
fifteen minutes of scrubbing with dish soap. He takes her on haunt her, so she fears the worst at all times. She fears that she’ll
vacation and she opens up to him about her early life. Kofi lose Kofi and the new home he provides her, too. That it's so hard for
offers to visit her hometown with her, but Bummi tells him she Bummi to remove her wedding ring represents how hard it is for her
can’t face the harsh realities that await her there. She tells him to let go of Augustine, the truest love of her life and her greatest loss.
that she’s terrified he’ll die, just like everyone else in her life. Bummi hasn’t been back to Nigeria since she left all those years ago,
and she’s too traumatized to return to the country that was her first
home and is filled with too many heartbreaks. For Bummi, as for
many immigrants, returning home is impossible.

Bummi tells Kofi about Carole and Freddy. She explains how Bummi fears that Carole’s marriage to Freddy threatens the
Carole’s marriage to Freddy will wipe out their “pure Nigerian Nigerian culture that she’s tried so hard to preserve in her adopted
family line” in just two generations because Carole and home. These fears are justified. Carole and Freddy’s interracial
Freddy’s children will be mixed, then their grandchildren will relationship represents, on a small scale, the ways in which Western,
look white. She questions if this is what they came to England white-supremacist society erases the cultural and racial identity of
for. When Bummi finally meets Freddy she is ready to hate him. immigrants through assimilation, which often feels like the only
Freddy is kind and cheerful, watches Nollywood movies with path forward for second-generation children. Bummi assumes the
Bummi, loves Nigerian food so much that Carole has started worst-case scenario, without considering that Carole and Freddy’s
eating it again, and overall makes Carole a happier person. mixed children may end up with other people of color, that the
possibilities for love and identity in a more modern, progressive
England are endless. Freddy complicates Bummi’s narrative by
bringing Carole back to her Nigerian culture through his
enthusiasm, suggesting that he’ll likewise make an effort to help
their future children connect with their Nigerian identities.
Bummi, Carole, Freddy, and his parents meet for dinner, and Freddy’s parents accept Carole only because she defies the
Bummi looks forward to the occasion. Freddy explains that stereotypes they’ve internalized about Black people, the same
while his parents warmed up to Carole after they saw how stereotypes that Carole’s teachers imposed on her and her
“classy, well-spoken, and successful” she is, they are still “old- classmates all those years ago. “Old-fashioned” functions here as a
fashioned snobs.” Throughout the dinner, Freddy’s father looks euphemism for racist, and couching that condemnation in less
uncomfortable and Freddy’s mother condescendingly explains harsh language functions to shield both them and Freddy from
what hors d’oeuvres are while looking at Bummi like “she was a confronting and challenging their biases. Freddy’s parents impose
famine victim.” Carole wears a fake smile the whole time. their stereotypical understandings and imaginings of Africa on
Bummi hopes the wedding will be the next and last time she has Bummi, assuming that she’s ignorant and regarding her with pity.
to see them and is relieved when Freddy and Carole are Carole and Bummi both suffer through the encounter, highlighting
married in a registry office. how people of color in interracial relationships must shoulder
microaggressions and racism from withing their new homes and
extended families, while the white people involved are not asked to
change or correct their behaviors and assumptions.
Bummi lies sunning in the garden while Kofi is in the house Although Bummi is content with her new life, she years for an
cooking dinner. Like Carole and Freddy, they married in a unconventional romantic relationship, akin to the polyamorous
registry office. Bummi misses Omofe more than ever and triad that radical Amma maintains. Bummi is held back by tradition
wishes she could have both her and Kofi, like how men are and the need to survive. As a first-generation immigrant her options
allowed to have multiple wives. Bummi hears Omofe works in for love and life in general have been more limited. Survival and
Moto’s salon, and that they may even live together. Freddy and sacrifice limit Bummi’s ability to be radical, despite what she
Carole come over to Bummi and Kofi’s house on Sundays ultimately wants for herself. So she accepts the cards she’s been
bearing gifts. Freddy calls Bummi “Mum.” Sometimes Kofi’s dealt and settles for what she has. Bummi has built a life and home
children and grandchildren come, too. She sits back, sipping the that her mother would be proud of. Her life lives up to the dreams
lemonade Kofi’s made her, thinking: “see me now, Mama, see Iyatunde had for her and that she ultimately sacrificed her life for.
me now.”

CHAPTER 2: LATISHA
LaTisha KaNisha Jones, or “Major General Mum” if you ask her LaTisha is a fierce and powerful woman and mother. She works hard
kids, walks through the supermarket 15 minutes before at her job and strives to achieve. She’s dedicated to her children and
opening. She’s a supervisor, the “Chief Fucking Bitch,” and their education, seeing it as the key to their upward mobility.
checks off all her morning tasks. Her delivery and inventory
records are spotless. The fruit and vegetable section, her
territory, is perfectly organized. She thinks about her kids, how
she tries to make learning fun for them because they need to
do well in school or else be chained up in the basement for 24
hours.
LaTisha is dressed in her crisp navy blue uniform looking smart LaTisha has turned her life around. She’s buying into the myth of
and professional. She’s reinvented herself after escaping the meritocracy because it’s her only way forward, even though her
“horror movie” that was her adolescence. She’s great at her job hard work hasn’t paid off financially yet. LaTisha used to challenge
in retail, having won colleague and supervisor of the month society’s often arbitrary rules, but society punishes people who try
many times. She doesn’t make a lot of money but hopes to make to exist outside of its confines. Now she complies with society’s
general manager someday through hard work and the right demands, seeing it as the only way to achieve success and a better
amount of sucking up. A promotion requires focus, and for life for her children. For LaTisha, love and dating have distracted
LaTisha that means no dating. When she first started at the and derailed her in the past.
supermarket, right out of high school, LaTisha didn’t take
orders from anyone. The supermarket, like school, was full of
senseless rules.
LaTisha remembers Mrs. King, who told her she wasn’t stupid, Like Amma, LaTisha becomes radical and rebellious in high school,
she just didn’t apply herself. She rebelled against everything, but LaTisha’s rebellion is rooted in the emotional aftermath of her
dreamed of rallying her generation to mass rebellion. She father’s abandonment. Her father, Glenmore, was a model, loving
wanted to create the havoc she felt when her dad, Glenmore father before he left. He was devoted to his family, and his sudden
Jones, left her. Her dad was an exterminator and he loved his abandonment is especially painful because it betrays the eternal
job. He was funny and tall, with long dreadlocks and strong love he professed for his family as LaTisha was growing up.
muscles. He worked as a bouncer at a club frequented by
famous soccer players who gambled away their fortunes in the
back. They’d offer him private security jobs, but he declined in
order to be home with his family, which was his life: “L is for
love, I is for immortal, F is for family, E is for eternal.”
LaTisha’s parents took her and her sister, Jayla, to museums As first-generation immigrants, LaTisha’s parents worked hard to
and aquariums, and on vacations. Her mother, Pauline, give their second-generation children the privileges and enrichment
explained that these were the things children needed to be that help foster success and are typically reserved for the white
successful in life. Pauline immigrated to Liverpool from St. Lucia middle and upper classes. Her father was subject to the same
when she was two years old. Glenmore immigrated from racism, bias, and stereotypes that LaTisha will face in England’s
Montserrat at 13. He was singled out in school. When he schools. Glenmore’s teachers internalized the bias and stereotype
complained about the cold his teachers said he had behavioral that Black boys are violent and dangerous, so that’s all they could
problems, held him back a year for speaking Patois, and sent see when they looked at him, when really he was a young, immigrant
him alone to the “Sin Bin” when he and his white classmates got boy struggling to adjust to his new home. In this way, Glenmore gets
into trouble. His teachers labeled him as aggressive, and when caught up in the school to prison pipeline, a system that continues
he threw a chair at a teacher he was sent to juvenile detention. to trap young, Black boys.

Determined not to turn out like the other boys there, Glenmore survives and escapes the fate that awaits Black boys
Glenmore got out and worked hard creating a life he wanted to trapped and condemned by society’s racism. LaTisha admires her
live, channeling his anger into bodybuilding. When he told father’s strength and basks in his loving attention, thus the sting of
these stories to LaTisha and Jayla he was really speaking to his abandonment hurts her even more severely. Inexplicably,
LaTisha, his favorite. The Jones family was happy until Glenmore abandons the life he worked so hard to create. In the
Glenmore left with no warning. He left when the girls were at process, he devastates the three women he leaves behind,
school and Pauline was at work, with no explanation beyond a highlighting the ways in which men disregard others, especially
note saying he was sorry. LaTisha’s mother panicked and found women, for their own benefit.
out from his friends that he’d left the country. LaTisha waited
by the window hoping he’d return. She and Jayla stayed home
from school and their mother from work. Her Aunty Angie had
to force her to bathe, eat, and sleep.
In LaTisha’s memories, Pauline finally gets Glenmore on the Pauline tries to erase Glenmore from their lives entirely in efforts to
phone and finds out he’s in New Jersey living with one of erase the pain of his abandonment. However, his absence becomes
Pauline’s friends and the daughter they have together. Pauline a searing presence in their lives. He is impossible to erase. He lives in
burns his clothes, takes down his photos, and rids the house of the house they once shared, and in the alcoholism that Pauline
anything connected to him. LaTisha and Jayla are banned from develops as she struggles to cope. Because their happy home and
talking about him, but his ghost haunts LaTisha. He lives in the family are already broken, Pauline shatters the façade further by
memories triggered by every room in their house. Her mom revealing the truth about Jayla’s father. The men in Pauline’s life
starts overeating and drinking to excess. One day Pauline sits have consistently disappointed and betrayed her. Like many women,
the sisters down and reveals that Jayla’s father was a violent she’s been subject to violence and abandonment, tools of sexism
ex-boyfriend who she’d escaped and who never knew she’d had and misogyny that men wield against women.
his child. She met Glenmore at the end of her pregnancy, and he
vowed to love the child as if it was his own.
After this revelation, Jayla refuses to talk to LaTisha about it. Just as her mother has been devastated and betrayed by men, Jayla
One morning Jayla declares that she wants to meet her father. is, too. The women in her life, all too familiar with the ways men
Pauline warns that she shouldn’t seek him out. Aunty Angie abandon and disappoint, try to protect her from this emotional
takes Jayla to her parents’ house. Her father’s mother is devastation, but she has to find out for herself. Jayla’s father
shocked when Jayla shows up looking exactly like her father, highlights the ways in which some men move irresponsibly through
and not happy to see that her son has another child. She speaks the world without regard for the women they enter into
to him on the phone, then tells Jayla that he can’t meet her relationships with or for the children they have only to leave behind.
because he already has too many children. She tells her she’s
better off without him, but Jayla is devastated. LaTisha tells her
he’s just another bastard like Glenmore, who called LaTisha on
her birthday a year after he left to apologize. LaTisha hung up
on him.

When people asked LaTisha about her dad, she lied and said LaTisha is ashamed of the truth about her father. She’s internalized
he’d died of a heart attack. The truth, she thinks, would make his abandonment as an indication that something is wrong with her,
people assume there’s something wrong with her family. She rather than the other way around. She doesn’t want the world to see
starts acting out, and not even Pauline, a social worker, can stop her family as a stereotype, a Black single mother with fatherless
her. She throws a big party when she’s 13 and is caught when children, but that’s exactly the lens through which her teachers view
her mother comes home earlier than expected, finding her her family. White-supremacist, English society judges families like
house destroyed. Her mother beats her as a punishment, which LaTisha’s without acknowledging how oppressive systems and
she’d never done before, and views the incident as a turning structural racism create generational trauma that keeps families
point in their relationship. broken and unstable. Glenmore’s abandonment not only destroys
LaTisha’s father-daughter relationship, but her relationship with her
mother, too. Her behavioral issues, a direct result of her father’s
abandonment, devastate their relationship and lead to abuse.
Not wanting to be beaten again, LaTisha promises to behave at Carole betrays LaTisha by viewing her through the same damaging,
home, but still runs wild at school with her crew of friends that stereotypical lenses that white society views her through. Carole
included Carole until she decided to be studious and cut condemns LaTisha to a bleak future and leaves her just like
LaTisha off. Even as an adult Carole ignores her old crew. When Glenmore did, compounding LaTisha’s trauma and fear of
Lauren, another friend, saw Carole on the train recently she’d abandonment. Once again, the abandonment suggests that she’s
looked past her as if Lauren didn’t exist. LaTisha looks Carole not good enough or worth sticking around for. All these years later
up online and discovers she’s a Vice President at a bank. Her LaTisha still yearns for Carole’s approval, perhaps even more so now
picture shows a professional and satisfied woman who is not that Carole is successful by mainstream standards as someone
the Carole that LaTisha knew. LaTisha still wants to prove to who’s made it and is reforming white supremacist society from
Carole that she’s not the delinquent teenager she once was, within its existing, elite institutions. Carole represents what LaTisha
that she’s good enough to be her friend now. could have been. They are both second-generation children of
immigrants who grew up poor, in single-parent, fatherless
households, and attended an under-resourced public school. Carole,
like Glenmore, was one of the few able to escape the cycles that
trapped many of her peers like LaTisha.
LaTisha heads to the hot foods section to cover for the LaTisha stole from the store because she had no choice, highlighting
manager who’s late. One of the employees in this section was how the intersecting societal injustices of race and class function to
fired last week for eating chicken wings without paying, and criminalize those who are struggling to survive. When LaTisha
this reminds LaTisha of how she had to steal from the store. meets Dwight he takes advantage of her emotional vulnerability,
Her story, she thinks, gave her a more valid excuse to steal. still fresh from her father’s abandonment. She finds a home in him
LaTisha suddenly flashes back to her early days at the that she’s been missing since her childhood family was shattered,
supermarket when she met Dwight in the lunch room at work. but Dwight abandons her, too. Like Glenmore and Jayla’s father,
Dwight showered her with attention and took her on dates. He Dwight leaves a woman and child behind in pursuit of his own
was the first person LaTisha opened up to about her dad’s pleasure. LaTisha remainstrapped in this cycle of abandonment that
abandonment. Dwight tried to comfort her, but soon reinforces the false notion that she is worthless and forgettable.
abandoned her himself when a new girl came along. By then,
she was pregnant with his child, which she didn’t discover until
she was seven months along.

When she tells Dwight, the two argue, blaming each other. Dwight blames LaTisha for the pregnancy, placing the burden of
LaTisha is livid because Dwight refused to use condoms, and he birth control and family planning on women, the way that society
tells her she should have known better than to let him not. does as a whole. In this case, Dwight actively refused to use
Pauline is outraged when LaTisha breaks the news. One night, protection, refusing to take no for an answer, placing his pleasure
after her son Jason is born, LaTisha and her mother fight. Her over LaTisha’s comfort and safety, and asserting a sexual
mother is angry and ashamed that her daughter is a dominance that men too frequently wield against women. Then,
“babymother.” When LaTisha smarts back that she’s not one to Dwight blames and gaslights her when he’s faced with the
judge, her mother throws her out of the house and onto the consequences of his own actions. Pauline is ashamed that LaTisha
pavement. LaTisha throws a brick at the living room window, it is fulfilling society’s stereotypical expectations of young, Black
shatters, and her mother threatens to call the police. Her women. She’s been trapped by a narrative that society imposed and
mother tells her that she works with girls like her and doesn’t forced upon her. Pauline’s shame is rooted in the fact that she, too,
need one at home, too. She gives LaTisha an emergency was abandoned by a man and forced to be a single mother. She feels
number as she leaves with Jason. she failed to live up to her own dreams of giving her second-
generation children a better life. This conflict escalates to more
violence, and like the brick through the window, shatters their
relationship and home further.
The phone number leads LaTisha to emergency housing for LaTisha has been abandoned by yet another person in her life, but
young mothers. She can’t believe the one person who could this time by her mother, not a man. This betrayal is especially
teach her to be a mother has kicked her out. Dwight’s only painful now that LaTisha needs her mother to guide her through
effort to help is making sure his shifts as the store’s security motherhood. Her mother eventually reclaims her to give her the
guard line up with LaTisha’s so she can steal as much for the support she lacked after Glenmore’s abandonment.
baby as possible. A week passes, and Pauline comes to pick her
up. Back home, Jayla watches Jason when LaTisha is at work all
day.
LaTisha settles back into life now that Pauline and Jayla are Mark offers LaTisha the promise of the home she still yearns and
there to share the responsibilities of motherhood. A single searches for. He’s a man she hopes can fill her father’s void. Not only
mother at 18, LaTisha’s dating prospects are dim. She meets is she abandoned once more by another man, but her friends
Mark at the club she goes to with friends once a month. He has abandon her as well. They are preoccupied with their independent
a solid job, takes her on real dates, and tells her they were twenty-something lifestyles, an important life phase of self-
meant to be. She dreams he’ll be a father to Jason, but instead discovery that LaTisha’s young motherhood takes away from her.
winds up pregnant with Jantelle. Mark doesn’t know about LaTisha transitions straight from childhood, when her life wasn’t
Jantelle because he gave LaTisha a fake number. While her fully her own, to motherhood that leaves her beholden to her
friends are out living their young adult lives, responsible only to children.
themselves,LaTisha is 19 with two kids. Her mother and sister
are her only support system because her friends abandoned
her once she became a mother.

LaTisha gets pregnant with her third child, Jordan, with Trey. In a tragic coincidence, both Carole and LaTisha encounter Trey’s
LaTisha remembers that she wanted him when he came to the violence. LaTisha knows that Carole and Trey had sex, but has no
party she threw at 16, but Carole beat her to it. Carole denied idea that Carole was actually raped. Carole never told anyone about
sleeping with him, but LaTisha knew she was lying. Trey asks her assault because she was ashamed and had internalized blame.
LaTisha out on Facebook, and LaTisha accepts, excited but That silence leaves LaTisha unaware of the threat he poses and
determined that she won’t have sex with Trey at first, and when allows Trey to continue his pattern of behavior. It’s in this way that
it did eventually happen she’d demand a condom. They were society wields shame and blame against women to protect men and
supposed to go to a restaurant, but instead he changes the allow violence against women to continue unabated. LaTisha’s
plans and takes her back to the place he shares with experience with Trey highlights how difficult it can be for women to
roommates for a “private romantic meal.” When she sees his say no and escape when confronted with a man’s power and
place, she wants to walk out, but he convinces her to stay and entitlement.
dance. Still determined not to have sex with him, Trey suddenly
shoves her hand down his pants. She wants to leave, but no
words come out.
LaTisha is giving Trey a hand job on the bed, when suddenly he Like Carole, LaTisha internalizes the blame for her own assault.
beings to penetrate her. She tells him to stop, but he doesn’t. When she gets home she takes a long shower trying to rid herself
Trapped underneath him she gives up, blaming herself for from what just happened, much the same way as Bummi did when
leading him on. After he finishes, he falls asleep on her. Afraid to she got back from her encounter with Bishop Obi. All three women
wake him up, she waits until he moves enough for her to in chapter two now unknowingly share sexual trauma. They
escape. When she gets home she takes a long shower represent the larger truth that too many women experience sexual
wondering if what happened was her fault. She thinks maybe violence, and that shame and internalized blame imposed by
he didn’t hear her ask him to stop, or maybe she was so society keep women silent and alone in their experiences. LaTisha’s
irresistible that he couldn’t stop himself. She waits for him to mother unknowingly compounds her internalized blame when she
call her, but he never does. Instead, nine months later, Jordan berates her for being irresponsible. Her mother’s own shame is what
arrives. She’s not even yet 21. LaTisha blames herself for being fuels her biting comments. The myth of meritocracy promises first-
so stupid. Her mom alternates between blaming LaTisha for generation parents that their second-generation children will
being irresponsible and blaming herself for raising someone so succeed in their new country, but LaTisha’s story highlights how
irresponsible. that story is only for a select few. Unlike Carole does for Bummi,
LaTisha doesn’t live up to Pauline’s first-generation dreams for her
daughter.
In the present, the New LaTisha is a “good citizen” who plays by LaTisha is reinventing herself as someone who is going to work
the rules and suppresses the old LaTisha who lashes out and within society’s systems in order to succeed. Like Carole, but in her
fights. The New LaTisha is 30 years old, pursuing a retail own way, LaTisha sees assimilation as the most viable path to
management degree while holding out for the right man who success. Although society often either pities or condemns single
will be a good father to her children, but she’s done getting mothers, LaTisha isn’t raising her kids alone. She’s created an
pregnant. She still lives her mother and Jayla, and together alternative version of home and family for her children who have
they parent her children. Jordan, the youngest, looks like Trey three mothers in their lives. LaTisha’s life is getting back on track for
and causes trouble at home and school. So when one day the first time since her father left when he finally shows back up in
LaTisha comes home from work and finds Glenmore inside the her life, threatening to upend her again. However, she takes a risk on
house with Jordan snuggled up alongside him, she decides to letting him back into their lives in order to give Jordan the father
take him back because she realizes he needs a father figure in figure she lost and so desperately wanted.
his life.

CHAPTER 3: SHIRLEY
Shirley, who is not yet Mrs. King, is about to start her first day Shirley, the second generation daughter of immigrants, has achieved
as a teacher at Peckham School for Boys and Girls. She’s full of the elusive upward mobility that the myth of meritocracy promises.
pride as she walks through the halls in her neat, professional Of her parents’ children, she was the only one able to do this,
outfit, determined to be a great teacher who will propel her despite the privileges her brothers had as the boys of the family.
working-class students into greatness. Shirley herself is a local Shirley believes in the power of education to help Black and brown
girl who made it in life and is here to give back to her children of immigrants achieve the same that she did. Through her
community. Shirley is especially proud for having made it work as a teacher, she is determined to reform society from inside its
because her older brothers didn’t. Her brothers were spoiled, institutions.
spared from housework and allowed to speak their minds. Now
Shirley is the “Family Success Story,” a university graduate who
makes her parents proud.
As Shirley passes a home economics classroom she thinks Shirley is critical of the second wave feminist movement that
about how she won’t be a full-time teacher and housewife, a earned women the right to work outside of the home and pursue
balancing act foisted upon women in the wake of the Women’s careers while at the same time not necessarily alleviating their
Liberation Movement. Instead, she and her fiancé Lennox have domestic duties. Moreover, the second wave feminist movement
agreed on an equitable distribution of domestic duties. She often prioritized the voices of white women, drowning out the voices
enters her classroom and her students arrive excited to be in of women of color like Shirley. Black women were already working
the young new history teacher’s class. Shirley is thrilled to be both outside and inside of the home prior to the second wave
embarking on her journey to make history fun and relevant. She movement. Shirley brings her passion into the classroom and her
regales them with her motto: “the future is in the past and the efforts to reform society. Her students find her relatable because
past is in the present.” The students respect her, which she they can see themselves in her. She’s Black and the second-
chalks up to her being relatable and excited. generation child of immigrants. It’s critical for students to see
themselves represented in their teachers and mentors.
Conflicts break out in Shirley’s multicultural classroom. A group Shirley is reforming systems from within her classroom. She’s
of boys show up with swastikas and National Front badges, fighting racism from within her classroom, changing young minds
which she deals with by showing them pictures of before they go out into the world as adults and perpetuate white
concentration camps that shock them. Race wars break out in supremacy. Shirley’s white colleagues see her as representative of all
the classroom, and she shows them horrific pictures of lynching Black people. To them she’s a “credit” to Black people who they
in the U.S. The students admire and love her deeply, showering otherwise view through negative and racist stereotypes. White
her in gifts. The principal praises Shirley for her dedication and people often see one Black person as representative of all Black
outstanding results. In her first review he tells her she is “a people, flattening a worldwide, diverse group of people into one
credit to her people,” and suddenly Shirley feels pressured not image and understanding.
only to remain an amazing teacher, but also “an ambassador for
every black person in the world.”

Shirley hates eating lunch in the staff room with the old, White people’s judgement for other cultures seeps into every
grumpy teachers. They eat their English lunches of pork pies aspects of daily life. Like Bummi, who points out how white people
and Cornish pastries in contrast with Shirley’s salt-fish and judge immigrants for shopping at immigrant-owned grocery stores,
sliced plantain, which she hopes they won’t notice and ask her Shirley fears her white colleagues will pass judgement on her food
to explain. A colleague reads a newspaper, and on the cover is a and Barbadian culture. Just as her white colleagues see Shirley as
mugshot of a Black teenager, which feels personal and representative of all Black people, when they see headline news
embarrassing to Shirley. Her colleagues never acknowledge her about a Black person they lump all Black people together as
race, and she wonders if they’d understand if she confided in criminals. White people get to be individuals, while people of color
them about what it feels like to be attacked by the media or are one homogenous group in the eyes of white supremacist society.
what it's like to watch women clutch their bags when she walks Shirley’s coworkers adhere to the false notion of “color blindness,”
past them. Although her mother advised her against thinking ignoring Shirley’s race and therefore ignoring an important part of
people don’t like her because of her race, Shirley struggles to who she is. Shirley knows they wouldn’t understand if she were to
quiet the voice in her head that tells her every negative confide in them about the microaggressions she faces on a daily
reaction from others is due to her race. basis, including from them, and she can’t escape the notion that
every slight against her has to do with her race despite her mother’s
advice.
Shirley tries to charm the older coworkers who openly dislike Shirley feels like she has to charm her way into her coworkers’ good
her, like Penelope. Penelope is not just the only woman who graces, not because she wants it, but because it’s necessary to her
speaks up in staff meetings, her voice overpowers all the men in survival in the school where her race and gender intersect to make
the room. Shirley hates that the rest of the female staff is her an outsider. Penelope thinks she’s being a fierce feminist by
beholden to the decisions that Penelope and the men make asserting herself against the male faculty but fails to recognize how
without their input. In one staff meeting, Penelope rails against her voice is drowning out the other women in the room, making her,
the half of the student body that misbehaves and performs in a sense, just as bad as the men who silence women. Penelope
badly on exams. Everyone knows that Shirley is referring to the does not and cannot represent all the women in the school,
kids of color, who are suspended when they misbehave while especially Shirley and the students of color. Despite her liberal,
white kids get detention. feminist ideology, Penelope doesn’t recognize how race and gender
intersect, how both movements are stronger if united together.
Instead, she perpetuates stereotypes about her students of color.
Rather than help fight against the structural injustices that leave
students of color behind, she regards them with vitriol. The school
suspends kids of color at a much higher rate than white kids, a
troubling, common phenomenon that fuels the school to prison
pipeline.
Shirley can no longer contain herself and speaks up against Shirley can’t remain silent and speaks up in defense of both herself
Penelope. She explains that she believes educating “our kids” is and her students. Shirley believes in the power of education to
what will make society more equitable. She says that exam change society for the better. Shirley has a more expansive and
scores aren’t everything. The other teachers clearly want progressive view of education. Penelope and Shirley represent two
Shirley to take a seat, but when she asks Penelope who will help different generations butting up against one another. Penelope tries
the kids if they don’t, the room goes silent with shock and to wield her age and experience against Shirley, but experience isn’t
excitement. Penelope responds by telling Shirley she isn’t a everything. As a person of color, Shirley can relate to and
social worker and that she needs to work more than just one understand her students on a level that Penelope will never be able
school year before challenging someone wearied by 15 years of to.
experience.

Shirley goes home to Lennox and regales him with talk about Shirley calls Penelope out on her hypocritical version of feminism.
her hatred of Penelope, just one of many nights that she’ll do Like many second generation feminists, Penelope’s feminism lacks
this. While he cooks she says that Penelope doesn’t deserve to intersectional awareness. Her feminism is for white women alone,
call herself a feminist when she attacked Shirley, a woman who and unexamined, internalized racism excludes and marginalizes
dared to speak up. Although she believes that power and women of color. Shirley believes in the possibility of reforming
privilege won’t disappear from society, she fiercely believes society’s systems from within. She uses the example of Margaret
that she can help the disadvantaged through her teaching. Thatcher, but on the other hand Thatcher could be viewed as an
Shirley believes that selective grammar schools have leveled example of how representation alone isn’t enough. Having a women
the playing field for smart, marginalized kids who would prime minister means little if that woman upholds white
otherwise be stuck in public schools. The current Prime supremacist, patriarchal norms, the way Penelope does on a smaller
Minster, Margaret Thatcher, wouldn’t have climbed the ranks scale at the Peckham School.
without such opportunities.
Shirley admires Lennox as he cooks, a man who treats her Shirley and Lennox are drawn together through their shared
equally and is risk averse just like her. They’re saving to buy a experiences as second-generation children of Afro-Caribbean
house and have kids. Shirley flashes back to meeting Lennox on immigrants. As was true for Shirley herself, and as she works hard to
the dancefloor in a bar full of Afro-Caribbeans who bouncers make true for her students, Lennox has achieved upward mobility
kept out of the city’s clubs where they wouldn’t hear their through education. In Lennox’s case, the financial hardships and
favorite songs anyways. They start dating and trade life stories. realities facing immigrants divide his family. He’s forced to spend a
Lennox’s Guyanese parents sent him to live with his Great Aunt significant portion of his childhood without his parents, highlighting
Myrtle in Harlem while they established themselves in the U.K. how immigrant divides homes and families with significant
Aunt Myrtle stressed that school was the ticket to a better life. emotional impacts.
He returned to his parents once they had enough money,
determined to do better in life then they had. In school he was a
good student, but out in the world he was an enemy because of
his race.
Starting at age 12 he’s stopped and frisked by the police, which Like many Black boys and men, Lennox is harassed and threatened
leaves his body feeling violated and emasculated. Lennox is a by the police from a very young age. Lennox was growing up in the
good boy who avoids the bad boys, who is made fun of for heyday of stop and frisk in New York City, a policy that allowed
wearing suits, and spends Saturdays at the library filling himself police officers to stop and search anyone on the basis of any
with knowledge as his Aunt Myrtle advised. His experiences “reasonable suspicion,” which in practice just fueled the problem of
with the police inspire him to become a lawyer, and now when racial profiling. Despite all the efforts Lennox makes to look like the
they mess with him, he tells them and they back off. Shirley’s good, hardworking student that he is, he’s stopped because his race
brothers survived similar experiences as all Black men were leaves him suspicious in the eyes of the police above all else. These
forced to. They had to be tough. experiences leave Lennox physically and emotionally traumatized,
and they also fuel his desire to reform the system from within as a
lawyer. That choice to work from inside the system where he can
use the system to fight back against corruption is his way of taking
his power back. While Lennox and Shirley have experienced racism
in different ways, they can share in their understanding of what it’s
like to be discriminated against. Shirley knows some of what Black
men go through from growing up with her brothers.

When Shirley and Lennox graduate they move to London and Shirley and Amma initially come together, and need each other,
move in together. They get married and Shirley Coleman because they are the only two Black girls in a sea of white
becomes Shirley King. Shirley’s best friend is Amma, who she’d classmates. They find a necessary home and refuge in each other
known since they were 11, the only two Black girls in their and their shared racial identities. At the beginning of the
class. Amma was shy and Shirley was protective of her. While relationship, Shirley was the guide and protector, but after Amma
Amma’s parents were educated socialists, Shirley’s parents takes the path of radical and Shirley takes the path of a reformer,
were uneducated and apolitical. Once Amma joined the youth their roles switch. Amma becomes the leader who later defends and
theater she found her voice and became a radical. Although protects Shirley. Amma and Shirley’s paths diverge in part because
Shirley believes it’s ultimately impossible to change society, she of their class backgrounds. Amma grew up with educated parents
can’t live without Amma. who were themselves progressives. Although her father was an
immigrant, Amma’s life was very different from Shirley’s life growing
up with two immigrant parents, both of whom were uneducated.
Amma had more privilege, which granted her a greater ability to
take the financial risks that come with a life as a radical
changemaker. Shirley, on the other hand, needed to survive
financially and wanted to achieve the upward mobility and success
her first-generation parents sacrificed so much for.
When they were 16, Amma came out as a lesbian, which Shirley’s discomfort with Amma’s lesbianism highlights how
disgusted Shirley at first. Only after she’s convinced that others intersectionality complicates identities and allegiances. Although
won’t assume she’s a lesbian by proxy, she becomes more, but Shirley is a fellow Black woman, her homophobia impacts her
never completely, accepting. Amma brings new, perception of her best friend. In other words, although they both
unconventional, mostly gay people into Shirley’s life that she know what it’s like to be discriminated against, Shirley still struggles
finds fascinating. Lennox and Amma really like each other, even to fully accept Amma’s sexuality. Lennox accepts Amma’s sexuality
ganging up on Shirley, teasing her for being so uptight. He’s easily because his aunt was gay, highlighting how exposure to
totally accepting of Amma’s sexuality because his Aunt Myrtle different types of people from a young age helps foster acceptance.
lived with her “special friend” for years until she died. Lennox
had once discovered photos of his aunt and her lover dressed
up in formal menswear. He wishes she was still alive so he could
tell her how much he loves and accepts her.
As Shirley gains experience teaching, she remains passionate The limitations of Thatcher’s “Master Plan” is another example of
about helping her students. She fights against the conditions at how representation in positions of power is, by itself, not enough for
her school, the large class sizes and lack of resources, as well as true social progress. Both Thatcher and Penelope may be women
Thatcher’s Master Plan for Education, which forces her to use a who are boldly breaking into male-dominated spaces, but their lack
standard curriculum among other restrictions. Soon Shirley of intersectional awareness means they are harming people of color
feels like a “Cog in the Wheel of Bureaucratic Madness” and in the process. In Thatcher’s case, her actions directly impact what
starts to feel overwhelmed by all the ways her students’ Shirley is allowed to do. By forcing her to stick to a standard
families are struggling in the face of issues like unemployment, curriculum, one that is likely depoliticized, Shirley can no longer use
addiction, incarceration, or poverty. The 90s are worse than the her classroom as a radical space for transforming society. Working
80s, and by the 2000s the school is plagued by gang violence, from within the system means having to work around and against
drugs, and sexual assaults. its rules, a tiring battle that starts to burn Shirley out. She’s
eventually overwhelmed by the difficult reality that educational
reform alone can’t change the systemic socio-economic problems
endemic in her students’ communities. She’s beginning to lose faith
in the power of education alone to transform lives on a grand scale.

Shirley slowly slips into the mentality she once abhorred in her As her older coworkers like Penelope predicted, Shirley has lost her
colleagues. She loses control over her classes, resents her passion entirely. She’s lost faith in her ideals and has become the
students for their misbehavior, and doesn’t encourage them to kind of teacher she used to abhor. Although a Black woman herself,
pursue college. She’s tired of repeating herself, hates grading, she looks down on her students through the same stereotypical
and starts to bond with Penelope when she finds herself among lenses that her colleagues like Penelope do. Her mission to reform
the group of teachers ignored by the new, young, passionate the system has failed, and now she’s perpetuating the same biases
ones. They despise the young teachers with their lofty ideals, and beliefs she once fought against. Her story reveals how systems
and delight in their failures and burnout. Eventually, Penelope threaten to break activists down until they give into the status quo.
retires and Shirley’s left alone. She thinks about leaving to work Additionally, Shirley has given up on living out her ideals in her
in a private school full of polite, studious middle-class girls. She personal life, opting to send her daughters to private school as a
and Lennox themselves have bought into the “great middle- matter of survival. From working in the public schools, she knows
class scam” by sending their daughters to a private school. how Black children are viewed and treated within that system.
Shirley at once recognizes that the myth of meritocracy and the
middle class is a scam, while she is one of the lucky few who’s
managed to make that myth reality. Society points to successes like
Shirley and Lennox's to claim that society offers equal opportunities
to those who work hard and play by the rules.
Shirley can’t completely abandon her morals, so she stays at Ultimately, Shirley’s idealism isn’t entirely lost. She still wants to
Peckham. Her life has been a series of successes—an elite believe in the potential for reform, but no longer lives by her ideals
college acceptance, a job at the first school she applied to, a on a daily basis. Lennox, too, abandoned his dreams of reforming
husband she loves, and a house in a nice neighborhood—so the the criminal justice system, his initial motivation for becoming a
prospect of rejection stops her from applying to another lawyer, by taking a better paid legal job. Both Shirley and Lennox
school. Over the years both Shirley and Lennox have changed. stayed true to the course expected of second-generation children of
He never became a criminal barrister, sticking instead with a immigrants, and that has paid off, as promised, in the third
better paid position, which Shirley thinks was the right choice. generation, even more successful than their parents. Their story
Despite not being very religious, she and Lennox went to highlights the ways in which the need to survive and thrive as a
church every Sunday to get their daughters’ spots in the person of color within a white supremacist society can mean
private school. Now, Karen is a pharmacist and Rachel is a abandoning one’s ideals to instead assimilate into the mainstream
computer scientist. Shirley reflects that she’s done well as the status quo. Activism is itself a kind of privileged lifestyle that flies in
second generation in the U.K. and that her daughters have the face of the sacrifices that first-generation parents make for their
done even better. kids.

Shirley and her family are on vacation at her parents’ house in Returning to her parents’ home country each summer offers Shirley
the Caribbean. Her time spent at her parents’ house is the best temporary relief from the exhaustion of her life in the U.K. that,
part of her summer. Shirley thinks back to the school year. She’d although materially successful, is spiritually deficient. Carole is a
started eating lunch in her car, when one day Carole knocked diamond in the rough that reignites Shirley’s passion. She works to
on the window. Shirley is shocked and thrilled when she asks help Carole become, like her, one of the lucky few who beat the odds
for academic help. Shirley holds Carole to strict standards and to escape the poverty and hardship that await other second-
she gets into Oxford. Carole’s success makes Shirley believe in generation children of immigrants like themselves. Shirley resolves
the power of education to change lives again. From then on that helping the promising few who come through the school is the
she’s motivated to mentor promising but at-risk kids with best she can do, though it’s far from the democratic ideal she’d once
unsupportive families. They don’t all make it to Oxford like so passionately believed in. In this new role as mentor, Shirley
Carole, but even when a kid finds stability as a plumber she teaches students like Carole how to assimilate into white, middle-
celebrates the success. Shirley’s mentoring makes her job more class English society, seeing it as the only path to the success she
bearable but isn’t completely fulfilling. Carole, Shirley’s earned in the same way. In this way Shirley is perpetuating white
“greatest achievement,” never returned to her to thank her, and supremacy, and, despite her good intentions, is robbing Carole of
Shirley feel used. her culture and identity. Shirley takes credit for Carole’s
accomplishments and feels entitled to her gratitude.
CHAPTER 3: WINSOME
Winsome is cooking her family’s favorite meal as the sea breeze Winsome feared that Shirley would follow in Amma’s radical
drifts into the kitchen. Shirley, Lennox, her granddaughter footsteps, which would risk her chances at the upward mobility she
Rachel, and Rachel’s daughter are visiting and the rest of the and her husband sacrificed so much for. A radical political identity is
family will arrive later in the summer. She loves when her family itself a privilege less accessible to those who are fighting just to
visits. Shirley’s best friend Amma has even visited before. While survive. It’s not so much that she’s not accepting of gay people, but
Winsome loved that her daughter had such a close friend, she that another intersecting, marginalized identity would make her
didn’t want her to follow in Amma’s bold footsteps. When daughter’s life as a Black woman more complicated than it already
Amma came out Winsome feared she would suffer in an is. Her fears didn't pan out in reality, but that fear is real and can be
intolerant society, and feared that Shirley might end up gay, too. all-consuming in the lives of immigrants struggling in a
Her fears, she admits, all turned out to be wrong. discriminatory, white-supremacist society.
Shirley acts like a tourist when she visits Barbados and doesn’t Shirley is not at home in her parents’ native Barbados. She’s a girl
help around the house. She never confronts her though from the U.K. who’s been transformed by her assimilation into the
because Shirley’s unbearable when she’s upset. She notices white middle-class. Winsome has to tiptoe around Shirley’s
that Shirley arrives looking exhausted after a year spent at her emotionally explosive personality. Her unhappiness at work isn’t
terrible job, which she complains about all summer long. what she expected for her daughter after struggling for all those
Winsome encourages her to quit, but instead Shirley dumps years in the U.K. to earn her better opportunities in life. Winsome’s
her emotions on her mother and leaves at the end of the complicated feelings about Shirley’s identity highlight the ways in
summer imbued with new life. Winsome likes that she leaves which first-generation immigrant parents can’t fully anticipate how
looking like a girl from Barbados rather than one raised in the their decision to raise their children abroad will impact their racial
cold U.K. and cultural identities. Winsome and Shirley’s story parallels Bummi
and Carole’s in this way. At the end of the summer, however, months
spent in Barbados return pieces of that culture and identity to
Shirley.

Winsome is frustrated with how Shirley is never satisfied with Winsome feels Shirley’s dissatisfaction as a betrayal. Shirley doesn’t
the life that is so much better than the one she led as a newly express her gratitude for her mother’s sacrifices, and perhaps
arrived immigrant whose work as a bus conductor was doesn’t even realize how ungrateful she appears in her mother’s
backbreaking. She’s incredibly grateful that she was able to eyes. As the first generation, Winsome worked hard to survive and
escape the cold U.K. to retire in Barbados. She belongs to a tolerated the physically demanding, low-paid work available to
book club where she bonds with other women who’ve come immigrants. Winsome’s return to her native country challenges
back home after years spent abroad. All her favorite books are narratives of immigration that claim life in Western countries is
authored by Caribbean women. She loves the intellectual always better than the life available back home. In Barbados she
stimulation the book club provides. can live a life that’s more than just backbreaking work. She’s
surrounded by friends and is able to pursue an intellectual life not
afforded to her in the U.K. Her ability to retire comfortably in
Barbados, however, is dependent upon the financial advantages
that she earned through her years working abroad.
Winsome watches Lennox and her husband, Clovis, head out to Winsome admires Lennox because he’s different from both her
fix up a fishing boat. Winsome admires Lennox from afar. She’s husband and her sons. Lennox and Shirley’s relationship is an
attracted to him and tells Shirley she’s lucky to have him, but equitable, feminist one. The need to survive in a hostile, white-
Shirley retorts he’s lucky to have her. Lennox helps Clovis out supremacist society causes conflicts between first-generation
more than his own sons, Tony and Errol, do. Winsome suspects parents and their second-generation kids. Clovis hurt his own sons
they may still be angry at him for how he beat them as kids, but because, to him, it was better than them being hurt by white people.
he was protecting them from their racist society the best way Either way, for Tony and Errol, there was no escaping the hurt.
he knew how. Girls needed less protection, she thought. All Winsome feels satisfied that she and Clovis were able to do what all
three of their children did well in life because she and Clovis first-generation parents strive to do, give their kids the opportunity
provided them with a solid foundation from which to launch. to get ahead in life.
Winsome’s granddaughter, Rachel, and great-granddaughter Even the small piece of advice about air travel demonstrates how
come into the kitchen. She inhales her granddaughter’s knowledge is transferred down through the generations of a family.
shampoo smell, still clean from the flight. Winsome taught In both big and small ways, the first generation of a family will shape
Shirley that it was important to be clean and properly dressed and affect the generations that come after. Winsome’s choices as
when traveling, and Shirley passed this knowledge onto her the first generation in the U.K. are what paved the path for the life
daughter who passed it on to her own daughter. Rachel asks that her granddaughter lives now. The younger generation doesn’t
Winsome to tell her about how she and Clovis met. Winsome is always appreciate their elders, despite how their lives, both
taken aback, accustomed to hearing about her grandchildren’s successes and failures, are inextricably tied to them. When Rachel
lives but never being asked about her own. She’s forgiving shows interest in Winsome she’s showing interest in how her life, as
because she knows young people are self-centered, viewing the the third generation in the U.K., came to be. Winsome realizes that
elderly as only their caretakers. So Winsome is happy that she, like many women of her generation, was never afforded the
Rachel is curious about who she was before she was a mother, time and space to be her own person. Instead, she was always
when she was “a person in her own right.” But Winsome defined in relationship to others, forced into a supporting role. It’s
realizes that she’s never been her own person. She went from only now in her retirement in Barbados that she’s able to live life on
daughter to wife and mother, to grandmother and great- her own terms and discover who she is among her friends and
grandmother. intellectual pursuits.

Winsome flashes back in time and tells her story. She meets Winsome settles for Clovis, a good man, but not the man of her
Clovis at a West Indian gathering shortly after she’d moved to dreams, because he can provide her with a new and familiar home.
London. He’d been in England for two years already and As a newly arrived immigrant, she’d just lost the home and
warned her how hard it’s been. Clovis becomes a huge source community she’d always known, and she struggles amidst hardships
of support to her as she adjusts to life in this new country and to put down new roots in the U.K. Winsome has to sacrifice her
culture. Even though he’s not as handsome or charming as she personal dreams in order to survive in this new place. The dream of
expected her future husband to be, Clovis is loyal, not like other finding a perfect partner is as hard to fulfill as is the dream of
men who sleep around with many women and abandon their becoming successful as an immigrant in this new country. She
children. She accepts that “it was easier to dream” of the chooses Clovis in hopes that, together, they’ll be better positioned to
perfect man “than it was to make the dream come true.” make that latter dream come true.
When they marry, they move into a room in a crowded Winsome and Clovis work hard in physically demanding, low-paid
boarding house. They work 12-hour shifts in a fertilizer factory jobs as many immigrants are forced to upon arrival. Clovis wants to
and save money for a house. Clovis wants to move to south- move south in an effort to reestablish the home he once had, and
west England, to be near the sea and work as a fisherman like misses, in Barbados. From a distance, Clovis romanticizes the life he
both their fathers had back home. Having grown up a left behind, but Winsome remembers the reality. She knows that
fisherman’s daughter who had to wake up early to help her making a living as a fisherman won’t be any easier. She’s part of a
father, she knows being a fisherman’s wife will be hard, too. But generation of women that obeyed their husband’s wishes and
women are expected to obey their husbands, and marriage is a desires, shaping her life around his ambitions alone. Winsome can’t
“life-sentence,” so they move. say no, despite the fact that she has very logical reasons to do so. In
this way, her relationship with Clovis stands in stark contrast with
the relationship Shirley will later share with Lennox.
When they arrive in the seaside town of Plymouth, Clovis can’t In both southern towns they travel to, Winsome and Clovis are met
find work. The people in town are poor and don’t want to give with racism and xenophobia. The poor, white working class harbor
work to a stranger. Winsome wants to return to London, but anti-immigrant sentiments because they see immigrants, and their
Clovis insists on becoming a fisherman. She asks him why they willingness to work for low wages, as an economic threat. They’re
don’t just move back home where they belong if that’s what he unable to see how their oppressions intersect. Both immigrants and
wants to do. Instead, he convinces her to move further south to the white lower class are economic allies, and would be stronger
the Isles of Scilly where the townspeople stop in their tracks to together if not divided by racism. Far from London, where there are
ogle at these “monkey people” who’ve shown up on their island. large immigrant communities, Winsome and Clovis are subject to
Restaurants and hotels won’t let them in, let alone give Clovis a especially hostile and severe discrimination.
job.

A policeman tells them the only thing they can do is leave and That they are dismissed by the policeman shows how racism and
never come back, so they do. That night they’re forced to sleep xenophobia are enforced by white-supremacist society and its
in the doorway of a church when the people inside won’t let institutions. Symbolically, not even the church, a supposed refuge
them in. Winsome insists they go back to London where there for all, will let them in. The only option is to run. Clovis, however,
are other people of color, but Clovis is determined to give doesn’t want to give in to this command. He’s desperate to recreate
Plymouth another chance. He says that once they have kids, a life that resembles the one he left behind in Barbados. He has a
living in the countryside will be better. They’ll be able to “roam vision for how he wants his kids to grow up, and the countryside is
free like on Barbados.” He tells Winsome to trust his instinct the setting for that vision. Unlike on Barbados, though, a country
that his plan will work out. whose population is predominantly of African descent, in the U.K.
his Black children won’t be free to roam. They’ll not only be limited
by racism, but in potential danger because of it.
They settle in Plymouth, Clovis becoming a longshoreman Winsome continues to give in to Clovis’s wishes for their lives. While
unloading cargo from ships and Winsome having three children he works and drinks, she gets pregnant and cares for the children as
in three years. Clovis drinks after work, on bad days coming is traditionally expected of women, especially women of her
home drunk, leaving Winsome alone with the kids until late at generation. Winsome and her family continue to endure acts of
night. The townspeople are openly racist towards them, serving outright and hostile racism, confirming that Clovis’s vision for this
her last in shops, leaving rats on their doorstep, and painting new home is far from what he imagined. Only once they prove
“go home” on their front door. Eventually, after they prove themselves as “civilized,” meaning once they’ve assimilated enough
themselves “civilized,” people get used to their presence in to appease their neighbors, are they tolerated, a far cry from
town. Mrs. Beresford, a neighbor, becomes Winsome’s first acceptance. Winsome’s first friend helps her further her assimilation
friend, inviting her into her home, introducing her to new into English culture.
people, and teaching her how to prepare English foods.
At school Shirley and her brothers are called racial slurs and Shirley, Tony, and Errol are disproportionately targeted and
punished unfairly by their teachers, their liveliness interpreted punished at school. Black students are punished and suspended at
as misbehavior. Winsome goes to the school to complain but is disproportionately higher rates because white schools and teachers
ignored. One day another Black girl shows up at school. She’s view Black students through stereotypical and biased lenses. Years
mixed, her mother white and her father Black, and with her before she herself becomes a teacher, Shirley is being looked down
lighter skin and loose curls she’s readily accepted by teachers on and singled out in the ways that her future students will be, too.
and students at the school. At wit’s end, Winsome asserts For Winsome, the hypocrisy she witnesses when the students and
herself and tells Clovis she is taking the children back to teachers accept the new, mixed-race girl becomes too much to bear.
London with or without him. In the eyes of the white townspeople, this girl is Black but not “too
Black” to be accepted. Winsome’s anger gives her the strength to
stand up against her husband, breaking free of the gender norms
that kept her silent.

Mid-story, Winsome is distracted by Lennox and Clovis headed For Winsome, Lennox represents what Clovis could have been in a
back from fixing up the boat. She thinks Shirley likely married different time, place, and life circumstance. Winsome yearns for the
Lennox because he subconsciously reminded her of her father, lifestyle that her generation worked hard to make possible for their
and Winsome thinks maybe that’s why she’s also attracted to second-generation children. Rachel, the third generation, has more
this younger version of her husband. That summer they’ll distance from Winsome than her own kids do, which affords her a
eventually restore the boat and take it out for early morning more generous and expansive view of what she sacrificed in order to
fishing trips, which are still a crucial part of Clovis’s identity and make their lives possible. Rachel thanks Winsome for sharing her
manhood. Rachel thanks Winsome for telling her “trailblazing” story, but on a deeper level is thanking her for making her life
story, but Winsome doesn’t see anything trailblazing about her possible. Winsome doesn’t give herself credit for how her presence
immigration experience. and fight to survive in the U.K. as a Black, Caribbean, woman
immigrant itself achieved social change.
When Shirley, Clovis, and the children move back to London, Winsome and Clovis finally build the secure and stable home that
life settles into a predictable and secure routine. Although they desperately wanted for themselves and their children when
Winsome craved this comfort and security when she first they first immigrated. But now that life isn’t just a daily fight to
moved to London and first fell in love with Clovis, as the years survive, Winsome wants more for herself. She yearns to reap the
passed, she found herself craving an excitement her benefits of her hard work and sacrifice. Shirley’s life and all that she
domesticated husband couldn’t give her. So, when Shirley first has, including her husband, are rooted in the sacrifices Winsome
introduces them to Lennox, Winsome is flooded with sexual made. Lennox is the dream man that Winsome couldn’t make real
desire for his youthful vigor and beauty. After that first for herself. He’s come true for her daughter instead.
meeting, Winsome tries to visit with Shirley and Lennox as
much as possible. His small affections—a kiss on the cheek or
an arm around her shoulder—electrify her and she has to have
sex with Clovis more often to get the excitement out of her
system. She’s attracted to Lennox’s intelligence and sociability,
which Clovis lacks. Winsome envies Shirley’s youth, beauty, and
the opportunities she had in life that led her to her life with
Lennox.
She notices that Lennox’s kisses linger on her cheeks too long. Winsome convinces herself that she deserves this happiness. It’s
She doesn’t want to betray Clovis or Shirley but admits that if true that she deserves happiness at her age after working so hard,
he made a move she couldn’t resist. One day Winsome is home but her happiness puts the home and family she worked so hard to
alone and Lennox shows up. He passionately kisses her in a way build up on the line. Winsome doesn’t want to betray her daughter
Clovis never has. He undresses her and she feels like a new or husband but betrays them both and fails to acknowledge how
woman. She enjoys passionate sex with him in a way she never this betrayal is far worse for Shirley than if Lennox slept with
enjoyed sex before. They stop only when Winsome has to go another, random woman, because this is a betrayal by both her
pick up Karen and Rachel. Her guilt keeps her up late, but she mother and her husband. Their deception and lies would hurt
decides that at almost 50 she deserves him. The affair lasts a twofold.
year. They meet once or twice a week, and on weekends take
Rachel and Karen to the seaside under the pretense of giving
Shirley a break. Winsome tells herself that it’s better that
Lennox satisfy his urges with her than with some other woman.

Lennox ends the affair suddenly and without explanation, and One of the initial reasons Winsome loved Clovis is because she
Winsome never finds the courage to ask him why. Lennox can’t knew he wasn’t the type of man to run off and have an affair. In this
look at her for a while afterwards and Shirley notices that the crucial way Clovis and Lennox, who Winsome finds so
two are less close than they once were, which Winsome tries to fundamentally similar, differ. It's deeply ironic that Shirley brags to
deny. Winsome wants Lennox more now that he’s retreated. Winsome about Lennox’s faithfulness. This part of Winsome’s story
She needs him to fill the longing and desire he’d awakened in challenges the narrative that suggests immigrant parents must
her. Even now, decades since the affair, her attraction is always sacrifice their entire selves and desires for their second
reawakened when he visits each summer. Shirley always brags generation children.
to Winsome that Lennox will never cheat, and Winsome always
tells her that she’s so lucky to have found a good man.
CHAPTER 3: PENELOPE
Penelope, 14, writes in her diary about how boring her parents’ Penelope yearns to escape the confines of her home. Her parents
lives are, unlike her own, which she believes will be full of shape her worldview in important and lasting ways. Her father
exciting opportunities. Her father Edwin grew up in York. His teaches her traditional gender norms, and her mother teaches her
life is dictated by his strict routine and the most exciting thing racism. Her mother’s racism was developed in an extremely hostile
about him is the porn Penelope found stashed away inside his period of South African history, so Shirley is exposed to deeply
toolbox, a place he never expected a woman to look. Her problematic ways of thinking about race. Her mother is an
mother, Margaret, is equally boring despite her “exotic” unabashed white supremacist. Although Penelope dislikes her
background. She was born in the Union of South Africa, where parents, she will internalize pieces of these beliefs, nonetheless.
her parents moved to escape their failing farm and take Penelope’s childhood highlights how racism and white supremacy
advantage of the Natives Land Act of 1913. Her mother are passed on and perpetuated from one generation to the next.
explains the act gave 80 percent of South African land to white
people, the “only people capable of looking after it.”
After the forced transfer, native South African people were Margaret grew up in a society where horrific violence against Black
desperate for work, and landowners like Margaret’s father people was normalized. Her father’s farm resembles a plantation
would hire them for cheap. The farm isn’t successful, and he from the era of slavery. Margaret’s vitriolic racism is further
blames it on the “idleness” and “resentment” of his workers. intensified after her father faces the consequences of his own
Other farmers tell him to tie the worst of the workers to a tree deplorable actions. In this way, her father passed racism and white
and beat them to scare the rest of the workers into submission. supremacy down to her, so she could later perpetuate it by teaching
Margaret’s father takes this advice and his workers seem it to her own child, Penelope.
quelled until one day a group of them attack him with his own
whip. Margaret’s father was psychologically scarred forever,
and they returned to England where he never worked again.

Margaret was happy to return to “civilized” England to get Margaret perpetuates enduring and false stereotypes that position
away from South Africa, which was no “place for a white girl to Black men as a threat against white women. False claims of sexual
grow into womanhood” because of how the “hateful” native assault by white women have been used to justify horrific lynchings
men looked at her. Margaret enjoyed her adolescence in of Black men throughout history. Margaret has a white,
England. She snuck out, wore short skirts, and smoked heterosexual feminist identity. Her feminism doesn’t just exclude
cigarettes, something only “sapphics” could get away with in women of color and queer women, but openly derides them. She
those days. She met Edwin shortly after her father died in an passes this problematic version of feminism down to Penelope, who
asylum, and he quickly became a source of comfort and support wields it in similar ways later in life. Margaret comes of age in the
during that difficult time. Edwin was a sensible choice for a decades before the second wave feminist movement normalized
husband, so they married even though that meant Margaret working outside of the home for white, middle-class women like
had to give up on her dream of being an elementary school herself. She gives up her dream of working as a teacher to settle
teacher. Married women couldn’t work. down with Edwin, who provides her with a safe home after she loses
her father. She goes from daughter to wife, never having the chance
to live on her own terms without being tied to a man.
Edwin took Margaret out but didn’t let her do things he found Penelope can’t imagine her mother as anything other than the
unbecoming of a woman, like swimming, dancing, or drinking. domestic shell she’s become under the hand of her husband.
While caught up in her domestic duties, Margaret tells Penelope is determined to avoid the same fate. She envisions a
Penelope how much she misses dancing, but Penelope can’t different type of home and family for her future self, where she’ll
imagine her mother doing anything lively or rebellious. She have self-determination and freedom of choice as a woman.
feels bad that her mother had to choose between marriage and Penelope’s feminist identity is born from the sadness and anger she
a career. Penelope can’t wait to go to college and pursue a feels for her mother.
career, escaping both her mother’s fate and the dullness and
routine of their home.
Everything changes when Penelope’s parents tell her that she The revelation that she’s adopted shatters the already shaky
was adopted. She no longer feels bad for Margaret, only semblance of home Penelope shared with Margaret and Edwin.
resentful for the way they revealed this information to her. Both Margaret and Edwin are emotionally unavailable after they
Over dinner one night they tell her that she was left on the drop this life-changing news. They can’t or won’t express their love
steps of a church with no information, and that they’d adopted for Penelope, and that leaves her feeling unwanted and unloved,
her from an orphanage after years of being unable to get both by her adoptive and birth parents.
pregnant. Shocked by this information, Penelope is desperate
for them to tell her they love her, which is something they’ve
never done. Instead, they carry on as normal, ignoring her tears
as they finish their meals.
Penelope is depressed for months but hides her sadness from Penelope’s revelation leaves her identity hanging in the balance. For
the two people who “used to be” her mother and father. She Penelope, knowing who she descends from is critical to fully
hides this new information from her friends, too, because she’s knowing and understanding herself. She’s lost the home she’d
ashamed to admit that she is an unwanted, rejected child. She always known with Margaret and Edwin, and the home and
wonders how her biological parents could’ve given her up, and community she was born into will remain a mystery. She’s different
feels like she’ll never know herself if she doesn’t know them. from Margaret and Edwin not only in terms of personality, but
The adoption explains why Penelope feels so different from her physically in significant ways that suggest they may come from
dull parents. The more she looks in the mirror, the more she different ethnic or racial backgrounds.
sees how much she doesn’t look like Margaret and Edwin.
Edwin and Margaret have light eyes and pallid skin, while
Penelope has hazel eyes, curly hair, freckles, and skin that tans
easily.

Penelope feels unloved and unwanted, like a nobody, and Penelope’s unknowable origin is a gaping void in her life story and
decides to become a teacher, get married to an adoring man, identity. She rushes into marriage and family to fill that void and
and have children to fill the void left by her adoption. She meets build the family she lacks. She looks to a man to heal and complete
Giles shortly after the news of her adoption destroys her, and her, not stopping to question or consider if he is the right man for
he puts her pieces back together. He is older and all the girls her. The fact that Giles desires her is enough after being rejected by
want him, but Penelope edges out all the other girls and wins both sets of parents in her life. The envy she garners from other girls
him over. They get engaged when she is 18, which makes her her age soothes her deeply wounded self-esteem.
the “golden girl” among her peers who are still single and worry
they will be forever.
Penelope and Giles get married after she earns her teaching Like many women of her generation, Penelope’s career is sidelined
degree. Giles is loving and affectionate, and their life together by the duties of home and family. In her rush to repair the emotional
feels perfect. Her career is delayed by their first child, Adam, fallout of her realization she was adopted, Penelope rushed
and then Sarah comes only a year later. Penelope is headlong into the same life that her mother once led, that she was
overwhelmed with love for her children and is happy to stay so fiercely determined to avoid. She’s gone from daughter to wife to
home and care for them, but after three years of being a stay- mother. She’s never lived life on her own terms, but only in service of
at-home mom, her kids start to feel like little vampires sucking others. She wants to live out her mother’s dream of becoming a
all the life out of her. She’s desperate to finally begin her teacher, but her husband stops her just as Edwin stopped Margaret.
teaching career. Penelope feels especially left out because Giles is grossly misogynistic, positioning himself as Penelope’s ruler
countercultural movements, including the feminist movement, rather than a partner.
are shaking up the world outside her home. Giles doesn’t help
her with the children. One night she tells him she wants to start
working and he earnestly replies that it’s “impractical to have
two masters: a boss at work and a husband.”
Penelope finds a friend in the local librarian, Gloria, who’d The Feminist Mystique is a fundamental text of the second-wave
ordered six copies of Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique that feminist movement; however, it speaks almost exclusively to white
she was recommending to local young mothers seemingly women. Its thesis that women should be allowed to work outside
burdened by motherhood like Penelope. Penelope loves the the home may have been radical for white, upper-class women like
book, which she hides in the closet where she keeps her Penelope whose husbands wouldn’t let them work and who were
cleaning supplies, a place Giles never enters. The book reveals bored with motherhood, but this idea wasn’t radical for women of
that her misery isn’t hers alone but is shared by thousands of color who were already working outside of the home out of financial
women who are going crazy trapped in their boring domestic necessity while at the same time caring for their kids. Symbolically,
lives. The book empowers her to fight against Giles’s old- she hides the book in a closet that she knows Giles will never open
fashioned beliefs. because he never contributes around the house. This mirrors the
move her father made in her childhood when he hid his porn in the
shed, thinking it’d be the last place a girl would ever want to go. The
Feminist Mystique connects Penelope to a greater community of
women who are oppressed in the same way that she is, and, like
many other women of this time, she has a radical feminist
awakening.

Penelope resents working class English women and the “Third Penelope’s feminism doesn’t extend beyond upper-middle-class
World” women who get to work and be mothers. Giles laughs white women like herself. Rather than see how working-class white
at her, but undeterred, Penelope follows him around day and women and women of color are her natural allies, even if their
night on her “freedom crusade,” determined to change his mind. oppression plays out differently from her own, instead she’s
One day he snaps, punches through the window on the front resentful of what she perceives as their freedom. She doesn’t
door, and tells her she’s lucky he didn’t punch her face instead. understand that working, immigrant mothers work for low wages in
They divorce, and she keeps the house and the kids. She hires a order to survive, not because they want to pursue an intellectual
babysitter and starts working at the Peckham School for Boys calling like teaching. She also doesn’t understand that they work
and Girls. hard on top of managing the majority of housework and childcare.
Giles responds to Penelope violently when she tries to advocate for
herself, and this is Penelope’s final straw. Leaving him allows her to
launch her career, but it also leaves her a single mom.
Penelope is charmed by Phillip, when she meets him only six Like she did with Giles, Penelope rushes into her relationship with
weeks after her divorce is finalized. With him, the regret, Phillip in the wake of an emotionally traumatic event and in order to
sadness, anger, and loneliness left by her divorce fade almost fill a gaping void in her life. She is still searching for that perfect
immediately. He’s a “Clitoris Man,” unlike her clueless ex- home and family that she’s lacked her whole life. Penelope and
husband, and so their sex is unlike anything she’s ever Phillip’s sexually fulfilling relationship leaves Penelope feeling more
experienced. They have a courthouse wedding and Phillip clued in to the sexually liberated second-generation feminist
moves into her house. She’s delighted that he works from home movement. Penelope relishes the role reversal in their relationship,
as a psychologist while she gets to leave the house to teach. happy to have Phillip home bonding with the kids while she’s at
Her children grow attached to him because he’s affectionate work. Phillip is a different, seemingly more open-minded type of
and playful with them, while Giles never was. man than Giles. He’s willing to be a stay at home dad, while many
other men would be embarrassed or emasculated by this role. He’s
also loving and affectionate with the children, taking on some of the
childrearing duties.
She loves that Phillip wants to know who she is as a person, not Phillip is the first man in Penelope’s life who wants to know who she
just as a woman and mother. He doesn’t try to impose sexist is as a person, not just in the role of daughter, wife, or mother.
gender roles on her either. In her diary she describes him as a Penelope has hardly had much time on her own to explore and
“New Man,” “in touch with modernity.” Everything was going invent herself outside those societally imposed roles. Phillip is
well until his interest in getting to know her transformed into seemingly a perfect, supportive, feminist husband, until he starts to
psychological interrogations. When she spoke her mind he’d control her in his own way through his psychological probing.
suggest they “find out what’s prompting this negative behavior.”
She feels “psychologically raped” when he goes into therapist
mode, probing into her childhood and subconscious.

Phillip criticizes everything she does, and Penelope starts to Phillip’s criticism becomes too much, and Penelope wants to end her
question their marriage after he accuses her of drinking too second marriage, realizing too late that she rushed into the
much. She’s incensed and insists a bottle of wine per night isn’t relationship. It’s no longer liberating or freeing. Instead, Penelope is
too much. She realizes that she’d married Phillip too soon when trapped by the unhappiness that has led to her nightly drinking that
her love for him was fresh and blotted out reality. Their once she doesn’t recognize as a problem. Despite her staunchly feminist
fantastic sex-life has dwindled to the “unimaginative missionary identity, she’d rather suffer through an unhappy marriage than face
pumping” that she and Giles resorted to once he’d no longer the shame and judgement that society passes on divorced women,
found her attractive after childbirth. She’s unhappy but staying let alone twice-divorced women. Leaving him would also mean
is preferable to enduring public humiliation and ostracization having to survive alone as a single mom for the first time, an
for a second divorce. incredibly difficult reality she’s never had to face and one that her
version of feminism doesn’t account for.
By the time Adam and Sarah leave home, Penelope and Phillip Penelope and Phillip’s marriage ends with another moment of
are living completely separate lives in the same home. violence, mirroring the end of her and Giles’s marriage. Penelope is
Eventually, Penelope finds used condoms in the trash, evidence betrayed in a way many women are, by a man who wants a younger,
of his affair with the 19-year-old version of herself. She corners “more beautiful” woman. This type of betrayal is rooted in a
him in the kitchen with a pot of boiling water in hand, most misogynistic culture of unrealistic beauty standards, ageism, and
angry that he’d been sleeping with a woman younger than her sexual double standards. A man is never too old to be desired, but
daughter in their shared home. Penelope misses Giles, who women lose their desirability after reaching a certain age that’s
seems appealing now in comparison. Giles is living in Hong deemed “too old” to be beautiful. Penelope’s children recognize and
Kong with his second wife, an Indian woman, and their sons. call out her racism that underlies her judgement of Giles’s new
Penelope’s kids love their half-siblings, who they’d met once family, but she accuses them of being too politically correct. Phillip’s
they started spending holidays with their dad. Whenever infidelity is the final straw and Penelope gets divorced from him
Penelope criticizes Giles’s new family, her kids call her racist. regardless of her shame. She’s on her own for the first time in her
She thinks Adam and Sarah are examples of “political life, removed from her restrictive roles of daughter, wife, or mother.
correctness gone mad.” After she and Phillip divorce she’s left Once again she’s left without that home she’s been searching for,
to live alone in her house. leaving another broken family in her wake.
Penelope hires a maid named “Boomi” and rents the upstairs Penelope is okay with letting people of color into her life so long as
rooms to Japanese students. She doesn’t like being middle- they serve her in some capacity, whether by cleaning or paying her
aged and single because she doesn’t know how to attract men; rent. She doesn’t bother to correctly learn Bummi’s name, revealing
she attracted them effortlessly when she was younger. She the subtle ways she undermines her humanity. Penelope struggles
fleetingly wishes she was a lesbian because an article said older with her sexuality in her middle age. Although she still professes
and younger women often fall for middle-aged women, while strong feminist beliefs, she struggles now that she’s free of the
men of all ages go for younger. Penelope tries to be happy alone gendered roles that she once wanted to escape. She’s still so much
and heed the advice of her women’s magazines that say women like her mother whose boring and limited life she never wanted for
shouldn’t be defined by a male partner. She wants to love herself. She’s deeply internalized society’s judgement and disgust for
herself and her body, so she gets rid of her full-length mirrors. women’s aging bodies, and gets rid of her mirrors in an effort to
learn to love herself—a step that reveals just how deeply her self-
loathing permeates.

Penelope should be happy at work, which she’d given her first Penelope still holds fast to her feminist beliefs, standing up to the
marriage up for, but starts to hate it when it shifts from a school male teachers at the school. However, her version of feminism
made up of “her own kind,” the “English children of the working continues to lack intersectional awareness, so much so that she
classes,” to “a multicultural zoo of kids.” The disrespectful begins to hate the job she fought so hard to have and that was her
students and male teachers leave her perpetually angry and feminist achievement. She continues to undermine the humanity of
she laments that feminism is going out of style to make room people of color, by comparing the children to zoo animals. She hates
for the “multi-culti brigade.” She stands up to the male teachers that society is evolving, that discussions of diversity and
now, after years of feeling silenced and left out. acknowledgement of racism is slowly pushing society towards
equality. Penelope represents an old England, one built on white
supremacy and concerned with preserving a homogenous
population and culture, but that England, and the people like
Penelope who believe in it, are fading into irrelevance.
Penelope remembers when “Saint Shirley the Puritanical of the Penelope views herself as a reformer as much as Shirley views
Caribbean” confronted her in the staff meeting when she was herself as one. Penelope believes her feminism has benefitted every
still a brand new teacher. She was angry that Shirley attacked woman on the school’s faculty, and thinks she deserves thanks and
her rather than the “male chauvinist pigs” who objectified the respect for those contributions. While it is true that she has made
female staff and even had affairs with students. Shirley, the school better through her pushing back against the male
meanwhile, thought she should be respected by female teachers, and through her petitioning for the Discrimination Acts,
teachers like Shirley because she’d petitioned for the Equal Pay the good she achieved is overshadowed and undermined by her own
and Sex Discrimination Acts that were both made law. She racism at odds with a truly inclusive and intersectional feminism.
eventually forgave Shirley and they became work friends. Equality of the sexes will never be achieved without equality of the
races, too, because white-supremacist, patriarchal society thrives
and depends on both forms of oppression to maintain the status
quo. Penelope and Shirley will be stronger if they unite around their
causes together, but by the time they do unite it’s over their mutual
burnout and disdain. They’ve both lost their political passions, and
instead collectively perpetuate society’s harmful status quo.
Penelope comes home from work every day to her Golden Penelope’s mental health suffers as she’s left mostly alone and still
Retriever, Humperdinck, who cuddles and listens to her for without the home and family she’s yearned for her entire life. She’s
hours. She reaches out to her “Sisterhood” of college friends never managed to fully rebuild the friendships she lost when she lost
that she’d ignored when she was married, explaining that she’d her independence to marriage and the all-consuming and isolating
“lost the me of myself and was subsumed within the we of roles of wife and mother. Penelope demands significant emotional
marriage.” She’s quietly happy when one of her friends gets labor from Sarah, reversing the roles of mother and child.
divorced, too. They become close and do everything together.
Sarah supports her after her divorce from Phillip. Penelope
phones her drunk to tell her she’s her best friend, and Sarah
never hangs up, worried that her mother is suicidal, which
Penelope insists she’s never been.

Sarah still hasn’t found love, but tells Penelope that when she Penelope’s feminism hasn’t earned her the exciting life that she once
becomes a mother she’ll quit working. Long having given up on dreamed of. She turned out very much like her mother Margaret,
her feminist politics, she’s happy for Sarah, wanting her only to who she both loathed and pitied. Now Penelope directs those
be self-fulfilled. Giles is the kids’ favorite parent because he feelings towards herself. She’s happy that Sarah is pursuing the path
supports them financially, which makes Shirley sad since she’s that she’d scorned, hopeful that it will lead her to the self-fulfillment
the one that raised them. With Adam off in the U.S., Sarah lives that still eludes her. Giles, who has more financial power in a
with Asian roommates who Shirley describes as “well-educated patriarchal society that privileges men, buys his way into the
and well-spoken so hardly Asian at all.” She comes over for position as the children’s favorite parent, while Penelope’s hard,
lunch every other Saturday, and Penelope cooks her favorite though imperfect, work as a mother goes both unpaid and
foods. Sarah works as a celebrity agent and tells Penelope her unacknowledged. This points to the way that society undervalues
life is hardly messed up compared to celebrities, before quickly the labor women invest in their children and families. Penelope’s
trying to walk back on the statement. racism continues to define her view of the world. She constantly
views the people of color around her through stereotypical and
discriminatory lenses. Sarah accidentally reveals her true feelings
about her mother’s life. It’s clear she pities her, much as Penelope
pitied her own mother years ago. She’s come full circle and is living
the life she’d wanted to avoid.
A few years later Sarah has a family and her especially rowdy Penelope’s problematic and old-fashioned views on childrearing are
children bother Penelope when they visit. Sarah’s husband another point of division between her and Sarah, just like her racist
insists on letting the kids roam free and when Penelope says views. She longs to be closer to her children and their children, but
they need to be slapped, he tells her that’s child abuse. She pushes everyone around her away with her negative attitude. It’s
hates visiting their apartment because the walls are covered in not until Sarah and her grandchildren leave that Penelope realizes
the kids’ drawings and everything is dirty. After Penelope gets that she’s lost the last chance at a home and family that she had.
the kids to sleep during one of their visits, Sarah tells her they
are moving to Australia, where her husband is from and has
been offered a job. Penelope immediately breaks down. When
she retreats to her room Sarah sends the kids in to comfort her.
As they jump all over her and tell her not to be sad, Penelope
realizes how sad she’ll be to miss their growing up.
CHAPTER 4: MEGAN/MORGAN
Megan thinks back to her “problematic childhood” during Megan’s mother suppressed her queer gender identity in her early
which her mother, Julie, treated her like it was the 19th childhood because, for a parent, a child’s deviation from society’s
century, not the 1990s. It’s only because of Bibi that she’s been norms reflects on them, too. Her mother, who already subverted
able to have this revelation about her youth. Megan preferred mainstream norms by entering into an interracial marriage, wants
to dress and look like her brother growing up, but her mother, her biracial daughter to stand out positively, for her good looks, not
“repeating patterns of oppression,” insisted on dressing Megan negatively and shamefully, for going against gender norms. Julia
in cute dresses “for the approval of society.” Being cute defined feels pressured to present an image of a perfect family because
Megan’s entire childhood, and her mother basked in the society judges them for being mixed race and she wants to prove
compliments, which validated her marriage to an African man. those judgements wrong.
They’d made the world a better place by having this perfect
child.

Megan thinks that she should have been happy that her looks Although Julie asserts a liberal identity, her liberalism isn’t
got so much attention, but she understood that being cute intersectional. Her progressiveness doesn’t extend to the queer
meant she was supposed to be compliant. When she rebelled community, at least not when it’s her kid who is the queer one. Julie
against Julie and threw tantrums against wearing dresses, she openly expresses her opinion that there is something wrong with
felt like a disappointment. Once she heard her otherwise liberal Megan because of who she is. Additionally, her definition of beauty
mother tell an aunt “there’s something not quite right with is limited to the feminine, whereas beauty can be much more
Megan.” Despite her beauty, she isn’t feminine, and her mother expansive than that. When Julie forces gendered items on Megan,
worries for her and hopes she’ll outgrow it. Her dad Chimongo, she highlights how women, even though themselves oppressed by
who’s from Malawi, agrees with her mother and the day after patriarchal gender norms, police other women and become
her meltdown about the dress commands her to play with her enforcers of those harmful norms themselves. She does this work for
Barbies. Megan hates her Barbies, going so far as to destroy the man in the house, Megan’s father, who plays a supporting role in
them, for which she gets punished. this enforcement. Helpless in the face of her parents’ criticisms,
Megan’s only way to express her feelings is by destroying the Barbies
that, feminine and white, are nothing like who she is.
Her great-grandmother on her mom’s side, GG, was the only GG provides Megan with a supportive home that she lacks with her
person who accepted Megan for who she was. Megan spends parents. At the farm she’s allowed to be at home in her body and her
summers at her home in the countryside and loves that GG lets identity. Julie thinks she can make Megan more feminine by having
her run wild. When she turns 13 and gets her period, however, her perform stereotypically feminine tasks. She views Megan’s
her mother shows up and tells GG that she can’t allow Megan gender identity as a phase she’ll outgrow, rather than an integral
to run around anymore because she needs to outgrow her and fundamental part of her identity. GG is Megan’s first ally and
tomboyishness. Her mother threatens to take away Megan’s Mark is her second.
summer visits, so while she’s around GG teaches Megan how to
bake. GG promises that next year, when her mother isn’t there,
she’ll let her run wild with her brother Mark again. They need
to make sure Mark won’t reveal their secret, and he doesn’t.
Megan’s mother is a nurse born and raised in England. She’s a Julie’s family has been deeply affected by their own internalized
little Ethiopian and African American through distant relatives racism. Their shame over their Blackness is so great that they’re
but looks almost white. Her family is proud that each proud to have distanced themselves from it, the later generations
progressive generation gets lighter skinned, but Megan’s now passing almost totally as white. Julie, however, rebels against
mother ruined that progression by marrying an African man. her family by marrying a Black man and having children who are
Her mother insists she’s color-blind when she looks at her very clearly Black. Julie adheres to a common and problematic
husband, Chimongo, seeing only the “lightness of his spirit.” narrative of color blindness. While intended to suggest an
Megan doubts her mother’s color-blindness because her dad’s acceptance of others regardless of race, the phrase implies that race
race is all anyone sees in him, including her mother’s own doesn’t matter, when in an unjust society it really does. When Julie
family, who were unhappy when they married. says she doesn’t see her husband’s race she is saying she doesn’t see
an integral part of his identity. She’s not acknowledging how his
experience of the world is shaped by his race, which everyone sees
and often holds against him, including her own family.

The different parts that make up Megan’s background make Megan’s story exemplifies how mixed-race people are often
people assume that she’s mixed race, which she lets them exoticized. Her lighter features like her blonde curls lend her a
believe even though she feels like she’s “just a complete human proximity to whiteness that render her desirable in the eyes of the
being.” The girls at school want her “natural suntan” and blond white people around her. She’s different, but not “too” different.
curls, and the boys are attracted to her. When her body starts Megan hates the term mixed race because she feels it undermines
to change with puberty, the hips and curves of womanhood her humanity, chopping her up into categorizable pieces rather than
don’t feel right to her. She hates her breasts and hates what she seeing her as a whole person. The discomfort and dysmorphia she
sees when she looks in the mirror. She hopes she’ll grow into feels as she enters puberty add another layer of negative self-image.
her body, but with time she only hates it more. She’s neither growing into her body nor out of her tomboyishness as
her mother hoped.
Megan shaves her head when she’s 16, much to her classmates’ GG remains one of Megan’s only allies as she’s abandoned by her
dismay. Her friends start to abandon her, and GG reassures her friends and bullied by her classmates for her deviation from societal
that a haircut shouldn’t end a friendship. There was something norms. Her friends, like her mother, are afraid to be associated with
wrong with those girls. Megan starts wearing men’s shoes and someone who doesn’t fit society’s gender norms for fear it will reflect
feels liberated when men stop checking her out. On her last day badly on them by association. The classmates that call her butch
of school her classmates graffiti the chalkboard, calling her the and ugly reinforce what her mother has been suggesting Megan’s
butchest and ugliest girl in her graduating class. She walks out whole life: that being beautiful means being feminine, and that
of school, knowing that brighter prospects await her in college, masculinity in a woman is not just ugly but pathological.
but still feeling like there will be something wrong with her
forever.
At night, Megan hangs out on the Quayside with people who Megan retreats to the literal margins of society where she seeks
are also outsiders. She does any drug she can get her hands on, refuge among other social outcasts. They provide her with a
anything that takes “her to a higher, happier plane.” Soon her temporary home and community where she can be herself. She
experimentation gives way to cravings that have her sleeping starts using drugs to cope with the pain of the rejections she’s
with men for drugs. She sleeps with women, too, which she suffered. She discovers that she’s more sexually interested in
enjoys more. She drops out of school, instead working at women, uncovering another marginalized identity that intersects
McDonald’s and living at her parents’ house; they charge her with her race and gender. The emotional fallout from years of
rent because she’s ruined her life. oppression and discrimination have sent Megan down a path of
self-destruction. She’s imploding from within, but as a result of how
she’s been treated out in the world. Rather than attempt to
understand the causes of Megan’s behavior, or even recognize their
role in her troubles, her parents punish her.

One night she lurks on her old classmates on social media, and Megan wants to be like her classmates who have played by society’s
is jealous of their happiness and success, even though she rules and lived up to its norms and expectations. Even though she
knows many of them have their own problems. Still, their posts knows their happiness online is a façade that hides inevitable
make her decide to stop going to the Quayside, and she quits problems, she wants and needs some of that happiness and success
drugs cold turkey when her parents are out of town so she can for herself. She returns from the margins to try and make it once
hide her painful detox from them. Afterwards, she feels “born more in the hostile world she lives in. The tattoo is a symbol of
again.” Megan gets a full sleeve tattoo on her eighteenth Megan’s rebirth. The fresh ink marks a fresh start and a proud
birthday. When her mom sees it she pulls the tablecloth, and assertion of her identity. To Julie, however, it forever marks Megan
the special birthday dinner she’d prepared, straight off the as different and deviant. Despite her own rebellion years before
table. Her dad threatens to throw her out for upsetting her when she brought a Black man home to her racist family, Julie can’t
mother, but Megan walks out first. When she realizes she left or won’t accept Megan’s gender rebellion.
without money or keys, she asks to be let back in and all three
apologize to each other.
Megan realizes she needs to move out to find herself. Her mom Megan has to leave the home that never sheltered her to find a new
begs her to stay, but by then it’s too little too late. She moves home and community where she’ll be free to not just be herself, but
into a hostel and is ready to live her life on her own terms. As truly find and understand herself. Away from her parents, she’s freed
time passes, she sheds the expectations and identity that her from their gender enforcement. While Megan has spent her life
parents wanted for her. She doesn’t feel like a woman and suffering in the face of judgement and criticism, when she initially
wonders if she wants to be a man. She turns to the internet and enters the trans community she brings her internalized biases and
online chat rooms where she finds a trans community she didn’t assumptions despite being a queer person herself. She’s lived as a
know existed. She meets Bibi, who calls her out for being queer person her whole life without knowing it. The experience and
ignorant about things like gender being a social construct. feelings are familiar to her, but she doesn’t have the knowledge or
intersectional understanding of what queerness means.
From Bibi, Megan learns about the reawakened feminist Again, despite her self-proclaimed liberal views, Julie instilled
movement. Megan grew up thinking feminist was a bad word, stereotypical and conservative thinking about feminism in Megan.
one her mom equated with manhater, which Bibi quickly Bibi is a radical whose identities and experiences fuel her desire to
dispels. Bibi wants to change the world, but Megan just wants make social change. Megan, not yet at home in herself, isn’t ready to
to be herself first. Megan is attracted to Bibi, whose photo take on yet another new identity as an activist. Bibi gives Megan the
shows that she’s Asian with square glasses and shoulder-length language to understand what she went through in her childhood
hair. Megan asks Bibi to school her in feminism and gender. Bibi with her mother when she explains society’s reinforcement of
explains how society reinforces gender through constructed gender norms. Bibi is Megan’s first example of a queer person living
roles and traits. Although Bibi rejects gender roles, she knows proudly and securely in their identity.
she’s female and transitioned seven years ago so she could be
what she always knew she was.
Megan’s mind is blown with the idea that she was born a Morgan is growing into herself, exploring the possibilities not just for
woman and maybe wants to be a man and is attracted to her gender but her sexuality, too. Bibi comes from first-generation
someone who was born a man and is now a woman. She and immigrant parents. As their second-generation child they had
Bibi spend hours chatting online, afraid that Skyping will kill the dreams and expectations for her at odds with who she really was.
fantasy if they find they aren’t attracted to each other after all. Their relationship is shattered when Bibi fails to live up to those
Bibi grew up in England and moved far away from her parents expectations. Bibi loses both her home and family as well as her
who didn’t understand her transgender identity. In her parents’ Hindu community because they don’t accept her queerness. She
eyes, she was supposed to grow up, marry a nice woman from reconstructs a new home and community within queer spaces.
the right caste, and continue the family line. Her gender-
bending in a Hindu community was shameful, so her parents
disowned her.

Bibi works in a nursing home and the old people there who Bibi’s experience in the nursing home challenges the assumption
witnessed her transition are loving and accepting of her. She that older generations are unaccepting of the LGBTQ+ and
was happy to be in the body she’d always wanted, but also especially transgender community. GG is another example that
surprised at how much she’d taken the privileges that come challenges this stereotype and generational divide. Bibi’s unique
with being a man for granted. Now she’s afraid to walk home experience of having lived as both a man and a woman in a
alone at night and is taken less seriously when she talks. Her patriarchal, white-supremacist society means she has a stark
experiences, she explains, are what made her an intersectional understanding of just how much harder it is to be a woman in this
feminist. Bibi tells Megan it’s her turn to talk about her gender world. These experiences helped her realize that all oppression is
identity. Megan is still unsure as she encounters all the options intersectional. The fight for transgender rights is deeply intertwined
she didn’t even know existed. with the fight for women’s rights. Bibi opens up a vast world of
gender to Megan, and Megan is still figuring out her place in that
new world and community.
She discover identities like non-binary and Two Spirit and Megan’s internalized homophobia and transphobia is evident in her
others like “quivergender” and “polygender,” which she derogatory comment about the many gender identities that exist
describes as the “batshit-crazy end of the Transgenderverse.” under the transgender umbrella. Just as her mother once did the
Bibi is enraged by Megan’s cavalier dismissal of the way some work of patriarchal society by inhabiting the role of the oppressor
trans people choose to identify, telling her she sounds like an and trying to change Megan’s gender identity, Megan, although
ignorant oppressor. The call ends with both girls angrily gender queer herself, can likewise inhabit the role of oppressor.
dismissing one another. They don’t speak for four days and Although she’s doing this unintentionally, out of ignorance, her
Megan fears the relationship is over until Bibi reaches out and actions and mindset still perpetuate discrimination and oppression
asks to meet in person. by upholding the status quo. Her ignorance almost costs her
friendship with Bibi and her connection to her new queer
community.
They meet in a café and Megan is immediately struck by Bibi’s Although Bibi is a woman, she was socialized to become a man, and
beauty. Megan finds it hard to believe Bibi had ever been a man, so sometimes slips back into the misogyny she internalized growing
until she starts “mansplaining” the gender expectations forced up as a young boy. Like Megan, Bibi unintentionally slips into the
on women. Megan realizes Bibi is a woman with a man’s role of the oppressor, but her willingness to be called out and correct
confidence and calls her out for trying to school Megan on her her behavior speaks to how committed she is to un-learning the
own lived experience. Bibi thanks Megan for this callout, and problematic habits and behaviors she’s absorbed. Bibi and Megan
Megan is happy that this confrontation doesn’t derail their challenge people’s understanding of gender. Their very existence is
meeting. They talk for hours, holding each other’s hands across an act of rebellion and protest that forces those around them to
the table and delighting in strangers’ confused stares as they expand their understandings of what gender can be. Megan finally
try to figure out their genders. Megan explains she doesn’t understands what will make her feel at home in her body, settling
want to be a man, instead wants to be gender-free. She doesn’t for a non-binary identity. Bibi and Megan’s relationship is shifting
want to take testosterone but wants to remove her breasts. from a mentor-mentee relationship to something romantic.
They end up at Bibi’s house where they kiss and spend the
night.

Megan looks to Bibi for guidance for how to start living gender- Bibi understands that dreams are fuel to keep going in a hostile and
free in a world defined by the gender binary. Bibi tells her that unaccepting world. Without dreams of a better future, the queer
dreaming is necessary for survival. When Megan worries that community would have nothing to fight for. Megan’s personal
switching to gender neutral pronouns is too lofty a dream, Bibi choices when it comes to their gender expression are an act of
tells her that she has to take this first step at changing the radical protest that will be met with judgement and discrimination.
world, even though she’ll be met with resistance. Tucked away Bibi explains that just being a queer person living authentically out
in the countryside where they feel safe, Megan and Bibi are in society on a daily basis is a step towards radically changing the
falling in love with each other. Megan decides to try out they/ world. In other words, each queer person is their own one-person
them pronouns to see how they feel, excited to embark on their revolution.
“quiet revolution” no matter the outcome. Bibi warns Megan
that people are going to get their pronouns wrong all the time.
Megan now goes by Morgan. It’s been six years since they Morgan has settled into their identity and knows how to deal with
decided to identify as gender-free. They’ve adjusted to being the judgement and discrimination that come with living life gender-
misgendered all the time. Tonight, they’re hanging outside the free. Unlike Yazz, who thinks her mother, Amma, is outdated,
after party for The Last Amazon of Dahomey, directed by Amma Morgan looks up to Amma as someone who radically changed the
Bonsu, the “legendary black dyke theatre director.” Morgan theater world. Although GG doesn’t fully comprehend Morgan’s
already misses Bibi even though they’ve only been gone a few identity or the vocabulary of the queer community, her decision to
hours. They’ve lived together for the past six years and have a leave the farm to Megan and Bibi is a radical act of allyship. Land is
happy and harmonious routine. Morgan spends every other power, and by transferring that power to Megan and Bibi she is
weekend with GG who still lives on her farm despite being 93. helping them carve out a safe, queer community that will provide
GG doesn’t fully understand Morgan’s gender identity but is refuge from a discriminatory world.
leaving the farm to them in her will so that Morgan can “invite
all [their] non-binding people to come and stay,” so long as they
promise to keep it in the family after they die, too. Morgan and
Bibi are thrilled by GG’s idea.
GG’s mother, Grace, never knew her father, Wolde. All she Grace spent her whole life longing to fill the void her father left in
knew was that he was an Ethiopian seaman who got her her life. His absence leaves her feeling like she’s without a complete
mother, Daisy, pregnant on a stopover in England, never to be home or community. She passes this feeling of loss and
seen again. Grace wanted to know who he was up until the day incompleteness down to her daughter, GG. Morgan wants to solve
she died, and in her old age GG felt sad that he’d remain a this intergenerational mystery that runs through the family
mystery forever. So, Morgan buys GG an Ancestry DNA test in history.
hopes that it may help solve this mystery.
Back at the after party, Morgan is ready to get away. They’re Morgan has become a leader in their new, queer home and
only there to write a review for a magazine. Even though community. Morgan is a radical activist, working from outside the
they’re a high school dropout, their massive Twitter following mainstream as someone without a college or even high school
@transwarrior has launched them into “influencer” status. degree in a world that makes it incredibly difficult for a person
Their Twitter started off as a place to record their gender without formal, higher education to be successful. Against the odds,
journey, and later transformed into a site of activism. With Morgan’s activism, which started with their one-person gender
Morgan’s rise to internet fame, Bibi warns them not to let it get transformation and revolution, now exists on a large, truly world-
to their head, and though they insist they aren’t, Morgan changing scale. Still, Morgan has to carefully tread the line between
sometimes worries they’re not being truthful. A publisher activist and celebrity, making sure that fame doesn’t corrupt their
wanted Morgan to write an autobiography, but they declined political rebellion. While Morgan’s family has grown, too, her
because much of their family has since come around to their mother Julie still praises femininity and is more readily accepting of
gender, so they don’t want to write anything hurtful about Bibi because her gender presents as traditionally feminine.
them. Morgan’s mom loves Bibi because she’s so feminine.

Morgan tweets a rave review for The Last Amazon of Dahomey In a move that parallels Amma’s choice to enter the mainstream by
that’s already racking up hundreds of likes and retweets. They putting her play on at the National, Morgan, too, takes their radical
finish off their wine and throw the glass into the Thames and politics into society’s preexisting institutions. Morgan shifts from
are thinking about getting out of London first thing in the radical to reformer when they decide to enter the university to give
morning when they recognize Roland, the TV personality, a lecture on gender, attempting to make change from within.
standing next to a girl who’d stood out in the audience of one of Working from within society’s existing institutions also comes with
their lectures last year. Morgan accepted the offer to lecture at financial benefits, but with that also comes the fear of selling out.
the university to make some extra money. It was their first time Because of her progressive upbringing with two gay parents, Yazz is
ever in a university. They talked about their experience growing the only one in Morgan’s audience who isn’t judgmental.
up and coming out as a trans person. Morgan remembers that
Yazz, the girl now at the after party, was the only one in the
audience that didn’t look at them like they were a “circus freak.”
The students were enthralled and Morgan revealed more By the end of the lecture, the audience looks at Morgan with respect
personal details including their decision to get top surgery. and admiration, speaking to the change Morgan’s work is making.
During the Q&A Morgan was applauded for being brave and Yazz and her friends, a few years younger than Morgan, represent
entertaining. Yazz rushed up to Morgan, and excitedly the younger generation caught up in being woke and hip. Yazz wants
announced that she, too, might become non-binary by getting a to try queerness on with a haircut, while Morgan’s queerness isn’t a
trendy haircut. Morgan told her that being trans isn’t costume that they can take on and off. In being so desperate to
“playacting an identity,” but is “something inside you” that’s demonstrate and prove their wokeness, whether through a haircut
been there for a long time, not just something “woke” or “hip.” or their opinions, young people like Yazz and her friends can end up
Yazz, flanked by her crew, convinced Morgan to grab a coffee being the opposite of woke.
with them. At the coffee shop Yazz and her friends were
overeager to share their opinions on gender, “as if they were
suddenly the experts.” At the National, Yazz spots Morgan and
rushes over to talk to them, explaining that she’s Amma’s
daughter. Morgan was about to leave, but Yazz insists they stay
and takes them inside to find Waris and Courtney.
CHAPTER 4: HATTIE
Hattie is 93 years old. Known to her family as GG, she sits at Hattie is the strong matriarch of a large family. Her position at the
the head of the table with her large family gathered around the head of the table signals her role as the family’s leader. Although she
sides. Her children are in their 70s now. Ada Mae is named is in her 90s, she remains active and agile enough to kill her own
after her father, Slim’s, mother and Sonny after Slim’s brother Thanksgiving turkey. Hattie is deeply attached to and rooted in her
who was lynched. At the center of the Christmas feast sits the land. Not even shoes come between her and the land. It’s clear she’s
turkey that Hattie overfed all year and killed herself yesterday. still in pain from her husband’s death and that she’s been terrified of
Bibi and Morgan helped prepare the rest of the food. Hattie cancer ever since. Her home and heart are incomplete without Slim.
loves to walk around barefoot on her “hooves,” insisting that
this is how she’s maintained her mobility for so long. Her feet
are callused, and she refuses to moisturize with cancer-causing
lotions ever since Slim died in 1988.

Hattie thinks Christmas should be called Greedymas because it Hattie hates that modern life is all about consumerism and
has nothing to do with religion and is all about overeating and materialism. Christmas is also a painful reminder of the home and
giving unnecessary gifts. She stopped giving gifts after Slim family she lost when Slim died. Her family disregards her wishes by
died and doesn’t want any of her own, but still her family giving her gifts, and then ignore her altogether, highlighting how
showers her in unwanted presents that she donates later. younger generations disregard and discard their elders. It’s clear
What she wants for Christmas is the one thing she can’t have: Hattie’s relationship with her children is broken. In her view, they
Slim. Hattie sits quietly among her family’s holiday chaos, and want nothing to do with her, but want to rob her of her money and
they ignore her until she starts to doze off, at which point they autonomy.
check to make sure she’s alright. Hattie suspects they’re
disappointed when she wakes up because her kids are
desperate for their inheritance. They want her to move into a
nursing home and sign over her power of attorney, “giving them
power over her life.”
Hattie doesn’t want her children to inherit the farmhouse just Hattie can’t bear to lose the farmhouse that is so much a part of not
to sell it off to foreign investors. If they ever try to force her out just her family legacy, but of her own soul and identity. She’s
of her house, she plans to shoot herself in the head. Hattie disheartened that her love for the land wasn’t passed down to her
thinks most of her family doesn’t deserve her inheritance children who see only its financial value. Hattie threatens to shoot
because they hardly visit. The village at the bottom of the hill herself if they try to take the land because it is her life source. While
where her farmhouse sits has become a “ghost town” that Hattie sees great value in both family and ancestral legacy, the
awakens only for a few weeks in the summer when the rich younger generations of her family barely even bother to visit her.
come to stay in their holiday homes. Hattie thinks the tourist Unlike most of the women in the novel, Hattie has lived her entire
economy and lack of farm jobs are what has depleted rural life in a rural community. Over the years that community has
communities. changed drastically and for the worse. Rural communities in
modern England are no longer centers of agricultural production
home to working class families, but are being gentrified by foreign
investors and vacationers.
Hattie refused to hire cheap foreign labor because she feels Hattie’s politics have changed over her lifetime. She starts and ends
loyal to the locals, and she blames her farm’s decline on her life as a conservative, like her father. When Slim arrives he leads
globalization and the influx of foreign produce. She recently her down a more progressive path, but the rural, economic
voted for England to leave the EU after they’d denied her downturn turns her on to the right-wing UKIP party and their Brexit
application for farm benefits. When her father was alive she campaign. Hattie highlights how economically depressed rural
voted Conservative to appease him, Labour when Slim was communities often come to lean right politically, as seen both in
alive, and Green a few years ago when she finally voted for Brexit-era England as well as the Trump-era United States.
herself. In the most recent election she voted UKIP, which she
knows Slim would have hated.

When Hattie’s family visits, they drink and descend into chaos. Hattie’s family and their obsession with maintaining their whiteness
Both Ada Mae and Sonny married white people, so all of reveals how insidious and destructive internalized racism and
Hattie’s grandchildren pass as white. They don’t identify as oppression can be. While she knows Slim would be devastated to
Black, which would’ve made Slim sad. Hattie doesn’t see why know that his children and their descendants have intentionally
they would “wear the burden of colour to hold you back” if they erased their Black identities, rather than wear them proudly, Hattie
didn’t have to. The only time she got mad was when the family views it as a practical choice made to make life easier in a hostile
objected to Julie’s marrying an African man, Chimongo. The and racist world. However, she hates that their racism isn’t just
family was getting whiter with each generation and he’d “ruin” internal, but that they wield it against Chimongo and Julie. They’ve
that. Hattie was furious, expecting them to be more turned their backs on their ancestors and heritage, and instead have
enlightened. Chimongo, like Slim, was a hardworking man, so he sided with the oppressors. In this way they preserve, maintain, and
won the family over. He bought his children picture books with defend white supremacy. Chimongo tries to protect his kids and
Black characters in them, so they could see themselves their self-esteem as much as possible in their white-supremacist
represented. Hattie felt guilty, wondering if there’d been books society and family. Hattie feels guilty, but when she was raising her
like that back when her children were growing up and if she’d children society was less progressive and there were fewer books
failed at being a mother. and other media that provided representation for children of color.
Morgan and their partner Bibi stay with Hattie through the Unlike the rest of the family, Morgan and Bibi genuinely care for
New Year. She loves when they’re around because they Hattie, likely because Hattie has always been an ally and source of
genuinely like her and the farm. Hattie remembers that support for Morgan. Just like it’s easier for Lennox to accept Amma
Morgan always loved spending summers on the farm and because his aunt was gay, it’s easier for Hattie to accept Morgan
that’d she’d known early on that Morgan was a “sexual invert,” because she personally knew a lesbian couple. Both cases highlight
not the Barbie Julie wanted her daughter to be. Hattie was the role that interpersonal relationships play in fighting oppression
okay with Morgan’s identity because two gay women who ran and discrimination. While the town accepted the couple, it was still
the grocery store in the village—one who dressed like the “wife” too taboo to acknowledge their identities out loud, so it was an
and the other who dressed like the “husband”—were kind to imperfect acceptance. Hattie’s tradition of leaving flowers on their
Hattie’s mother, Grace, when she first arrived in town. The graves speaks to her loyalty to her now dwindling community.
town accepted the two as a couple though it was never said out
loud. Hattie still puts flowers on their graves.
While Hattie could accept Morgan being a lesbian, she thought The conflict between Hattie and Morgan mirrors the conflict
her declaration of her gender-neutral identity was too extreme. between Amma and her father Kwabena. Both Hattie and Kwabena
Confused, she tells Morgan she sounds “mental,” and they don’t can’t understand the identities and politics of the younger
talk for two months afterwards. Hattie can accept Bibi because generation, which left both Amma and Morgan furious. Morgan,
she’d never known her when she was male, but saying you’re however, is forgiving of Hattie, willing to recognize and accept that a
neither male nor female makes no sense to her at all. When woman from her generation might never fully understand queer
Morgan finally comes to visit again, Hattie draws a truce, telling identities. Hattie may be too old at this point to fully unlearn the
Morgan that she can’t expect a woman born in the 1920s to narratives society ingrained in her about sex and gender. Because
understand this. Instead, she asks that Morgan be who she Morgan accepts Hattie’s resolution to meet them in the middle, they
wants without the two of them having to talk about it. Hattie can focus on enjoying the time they have left together as
thinks Morgan looks and acts the same as when she was grandparent and grandchild, as opposed to Amma who came to this
Megan. While she refuses to use they/them pronouns, she’s understanding too late, when her father was already gone.
fine with calling her Morgan.

Hattie looks across the table at Ada Mae whose body is worn Hattie is deeply hurt that her children abandoned the home that is
down from 40 years spent as a factory worker. Sonny has so precious to her. It’s meant to be passed down through the
emphysema after working in mines and as a bartender when generations, and their abandonment is a stinging betrayal. This also
bars allowed smoking. She thinks she might outlive her own compounds Hattie’s fear that she’d somehow failed as a mother.
son. Hattie thinks her children would be healthier if they hadn’t Hattie sees the farm as the source of her life and health. It’s not just
left the farm where the work would’ve kept them fit and young the physical labor that kept her in good health, but the deep sense of
like her. Because they abandoned her and the farm, she thinks purpose and connection to her ancestors and family legacy that it
they don’t deserve their inheritance. gave her. Hattie is steadfast that her children don’t deserve their
inheritance because they don’t value their ancestors, including her.
For Hattie, family is about staying rooted and loyal both to people
and places.
Hattie remembers that she always wanted to defend and Slim and his family faced horrific racism and violence back in the
comfort her children when something bad happened to them. United States. His brother was one among the thousands of Black
Slim, on the other hand, wouldn’t tolerate their “sob stories.” men lynched on false rape allegations based in society’s untrue
Kids at school pinched Ada Mae to see if her skin bruised and stereotypes of Black men and hyper-aggressive sexuality. Because
Sonny’s classmates held him down to see if they could scrub his experiences were so much more brutal in comparison to Ada
the color off his skin. Slim told his children to rise above these Mae and Sonny’s, he tells them to toughen up rather than
abuses, to attack back when attacked. He told them these comforting them and acknowledging that they, too, were
troubles are nothing compared to what he faced growing up in accumulating the trauma of racism.
the U.S. and reminded them that his brother was lynched
because of a white woman’s false rape allegations.
Hattie told Slim his stories scared the children and would make On the one hand, it is important for Ada Mae and Sonny to know
them hate themselves, but Slim insisted they needed to know their family history. On the other hand, Hattie was right that they’d
what happened to their uncle, thinking the stories would wind up hating themselves after hearing these stories on top of the
toughen them up. Slim told Hattie she wouldn’t understand racism they experienced every day. Due to colorism, Hattie’s lighter
because she’s “high-yaller” and from England, but Hattie skin gives her privilege over other people whose skin tones are
snapped back, reminding him that he liked that she was “high- darker. As a result, she can’t fully understand what it’s like to be her
yaller.” Slim told her it’s her duty to confront racial issues as the children, whose skin is darker than hers. Hattie calls Slim out for his
mother of children who are darker-skinned than her. own colorism, reminding him that her lighter complexion is one of
Eventually, Hattie accepted his point of view, and they followed the traits that attracted him. Slim’s appreciation for both Martin
the civil rights movement unfolding in the U.S. Slim admired Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X speaks to his belief that both the
both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and argued both reformer and the radical have their role to play in social justice
were imperative to the movement. When both were movements. While other characters throughout the novel have
assassinated, he disappeared for a few days. pitted these two roles against each other, Slim understands that one
cannot exist without the other. Progress depends on the gains that
both sides make.

Ada Mae painted herself as white in her childhood drawings, Ada Mae and Sonny struggle immensely with internalized racism
while Sonny dreaded being seen in public with his father. Hattie and attempt to distance themselves from their Blackness at a very
didn’t know what to do about the fact that her kids didn’t like young age. Society’s racism breaks their family apart as the kids
being Black. Once Sonny lied to a friend that Slim was a hired distance themselves from their darker-skinned father. Ada Mae and
laborer, which broke Hattie’s heart because she knew her Sonny choose to abandon the family altogether, determined to
husband would’ve died for his children. When Ada Mae and escape the racism of their small, rural town for the big city.
Sonny were 16 and 17 respectively, they declared that they
were done living and working on the farm and were leaving
forever. They left for London on the expensive motorbike
Hattie and Slim bought for Sonny’s birthday. Ada Mae left
dreaming of being a secretary for a pop star and Sonny hoped
to become a businessman.
Back on the farm, Hattie and Slim felt strange in their newly Although the move to the city meant escaping the racism of their
empty house and worried about their kids incessantly. The hometown, neither sibling reclaims their racial identity. Instead,
siblings didn’t make it even three months in London where their internalized racism spills over and become racism against
they’d worked low-paying service jobs and lived in “a run-down other people of color, a blatant hypocrisy and contradiction. The
house with coloured immigrants in a slum area.” The immigrants of color they live with in the city notice that Ada Mae
immigrants told them they acted too much like white people, and Sonny have assimilated into white culture, and although
which Hattie was surprised they hadn’t received as a they’ve spent their lives intentionally distancing themselves from
compliment. Having failed in London, they settled in Newcastle, their Blackness, this statement still offends them. This contradiction
much closer to the farm. confuses Hattie. They give up on their dreams of London, where
their identities were only more complicated.
1960s Newcastle wasn’t progressive. There weren’t many men Ada Mae and Sonny’s disparate experiences reveal a double
who were excited to take a Black woman home to their parents, standard in interracial dating, specifically white and Black coupling.
so Ada Mae married the first man who asked her. Tommy, a While white men view Black women as undesirable, ignoring them
coalminer turned welder, wasn’t very attractive or smart. and fearful to bring them home to their racist families, white women
Hattie suspects he didn’t have many dating prospects either, objectify and over-sexualize Black men. What remains consistent
but he turned out to be a good husband who loved Ada Mae across genders is that racist white family and in-laws protest against
regardless of her race. Sonny’s experience with dating was the the interracial couplings. While Sonny knows what it’s like to be cast
opposite. Women fawned over him like “he was the next best out from a family due to race, he and his family do the same years
thing to dating Johnny Mathis.” He married a bartender named later when Chimongo and Julie marry. While Ada Mae’s husband
Janet whose parents told her she had to choose between them may have loved her “regardless” of her race, their marriage wasn’t a
and Sonny. place where she could celebrate or embrace her racial identity
either. Marrying white partners allowed both siblings to distance
themselves even further from the Black identities they’d been trying
to outrun since childhood.

Hattie remembers that her first impression of Slim was that he Hattie, herself mixed race with a white father, objectifies Slim the
looked like the Masai warriors she and her dad saw in National first time she sees him. She exoticizes him and his darker skin tone
Geographic magazine. They met in 1945 at a dance for when she compares him to the African warriors she saw in National
“American Negro regiments” who were about to be sent home. Geographic growing up. The magazine is now widely criticized for
Her parents drove her to the dance hopeful that she’d finally portraying people of color as “exotic” and promoting stereotypes and
meet someone there. Inside, the dance was filled with other bias. In Hattie’s majority white hometown, her only hope for finding
mixed-race English women who had come from all over to someone to marry is at this dance. When she gets there she feels at
attend the dance. Surrounded by so many people who looked home in a community that, for the first time in her life, is filled with
like her, Hattie felt more comfortable and welcomed than ever. people who look like her. Among these women of color, she is not
alone in her struggle to find love due to her race.
In Hattie’s flashback, her homemade dress pales in comparison Hattie feels at home among these women because of their shared
to the glamorous ones the other girls wear. She shows up racial identities, but her intersecting class identity as a rural farmgirl
without makeup and the other girls, feeling bad for her because sets her apart. The other girls embrace her nonetheless and help
she lives on a farm, help her put some on. Every girl is paired up bring her into the fold by doing her makeup. White men either
on the dancefloor, so unlike dances in her hometown where the ignore Black women entirely, never entertaining the possibility of
only one willing to dance with her was her dad. The other girls romantic love with them, or oversexualize them, playing into
share similar experiences. White Englishmen either wouldn’t societal stereotypes about Black women’s sexuality. Colorism also
touch them or would expect easy sex from them. The women shows up on the dancefloor. The Black American men have
who are used to being treated horribly by white men are internalized racism that leads them to perpetuate the same bias
treated like queens by the Black American men “in thrall to and discrimination that affects Black women in the world of dating.
such high-class, light-skinned” ladies. The soldiers view these lighter-skinned women as higher-class and
more desirable.
Slim approaches and asks Hattie to dance. He compliments her Slim’s first words to Hattie are likewise objectifying, even if that
complexion, telling her that “those blushing cheeks alone will objectification is couched in a compliment. His internalized colorism
give you high stock value back home in Georgia.” For the first shows in his privileging of her lighter skin. He dehumanizes her
time, Hattie feels like a man sees her as a woman and not a when he talks about her “stock value” as if she is an object to be
workhorse. Hattie and Slim marry within a year with her bought and sold. At the same time, Hattie has never been treated so
parents’ approval. They’re happy that she’s found someone to well by a man. He doesn’t view her as a farm laborer, but as a
care for her, and Joseph is especially happy that Slim doesn’t beautiful potential wife. Ultimately, both Hattie’s father and Slim
boss her around. Hattie tells him she’d never let that happen. are progressive for the time. Each of them wants Hattie to maintain
her natural power and autonomy.

Slim likes England because he doesn’t get called “boy” and Despite the terrible racism he and his children face in the U.K., it’s
doesn’t have to worry about the Ku Klux Klan burning crosses still better than in the United States where Black people have
and lynching men. He says he’ll never go back to the U.S. Slim is suffered great atrocities. For Slim, marrying into ownership of
confident, outgoing, and polite, and these characteristics help Greenfields farm is his way of living out the dreams and promises
him find acceptance with even the most hostile strangers in denied to his family after the abolition of slavery. Although he
their English town. He explains that his father was a understands the power that land grants, and how that power is
sharecropper who was always in debt to the merchant who especially important to marginalized groups who were denied that
sold seeds. Many other family members left the land altogether power for generations, he still lacks intersectional awareness. He
because sharecropping reminded them of slavery. When the assumes that, as a man, he will possess the land alone because land
government didn’t deliver on their promise of forty acres and a is traditionally passed down from one man to the next. Hattie has to
mule, they were stuck being wage slaves. With Hattie and her remind him that they are co-owners.
parents, Slim explains, he’s working land that will be his one day.
Hattie reminds him that she’ll be an owner, too.
Hattie and Slim share a sexually fulfilling relationship and since Slim made Hattie feel at home in her own body. He loved her for
he died 30 years ago, she hasn’t had any kind of sexual intimacy. who she was and thought her Blackness was beautiful. She’s lost
When Slim died, Hattie started taking long walks all over her that loving and intimate home with him. Hattie goes out searching
own land and beyond. On her walks she carried a walking stick for Slim on these long walks. The cane with its Black power fist
that she’d carved a Black power fist into in homage to her keeps her connected to him, and to the ways he made her feel proud
husband. In summer she takes a blanket out into one of her of her identity. Without him, the land no longer feels like a complete
fields and looks up into the sky imagining Slim “waiting” for her home. At this point in her life she looks forward to reuniting with
up in the stars. Slim in the afterlife because life is so incomplete without him.
Slim always admired Hattie’s strength, and she kept their farm The farm is slowing down as Hattie’s body does. They are both
running into her 80s. Over the last decade the farm has fallen losing their lives. Her beloved home is changing, but what remains
into disrepair. The fields that were once well-tended and the same are the beloved memories that root her in this place and
productive are now fully wild. The farm is still home to all of her identity.
Hattie’s memories. She remembers riding horses as a child and
how easy it was to get back up after falling. She misses those
years when her body could do what she wanted it to without a
second thought. Now tasks as simple as standing up or getting
dressed leave her tired.
Hattie was always close with her mother, Grace. They were like Hattie’s love and loyalty for family comes from the strong bond she
best friends, and Hattie loved the time that they all—her, Slim, shared with her mother. Grace’s wish to know her father is a family
the kids, and her parents— lived and worked on the farm mystery she passes down to Hattie, so that it haunts her to this day.
together. Hattie remembers that her mother was tortured by Joseph wants Hattie to pass the farm down to a man after they’d
the mystery of her father, “the Abyssinian,” forever wanting to had no choice but to stray from patriarchal tradition because their
discover his identity. Grace falls sick and, facing death, mourns only child was a girl. Joseph wants Hattie to turn the land, and its
that she won’t see Ada Mae and Sonny grow up. Hattie’s father, power, back over to a man, but she bucks tradition by giving it over
Joseph, dies shortly after, and before he passes he tells Hattie to Morgan and Bibi whose genders defy the binary.
that she has to upkeep the family farm and legacy and
eventually pass it on to Sonny. After spending the 93 years of
her life on the farm it’s her “bones” and “soul.”

The farm has been in Hattie’s family since 1806. Her ancestor, Since its founding, Greenfields has been home to Black people.
Captain Linnaeus Rydendale, who’d started out as a cabin boy, Despite the fact that Hattie’s family now desperately wants to
eventually had enough money to buy the land and build the maintain their perceived whiteness, Blackness runs throughout their
farmhouse. Rydendale returned from a business trip to Jamaica ancestry. Slim discovers that Hattie’s beloved home was built with
with a young wife named Eudoré who was rumored to be the blood money earned through the slave trade. He's furious
Spanish. When Slim first sees a picture of her he’s certain she’s because the place he now calls home was funded with money that
Black, and Hattie thinks he might be right. Slim breaks into one cost his ancestors their dignity and freedom. It’s a cruel twist of fate.
of Joseph’s cabinets after he dies and discovers documents Hattie, however, thinks this discovery is a sort of karmic justice. The
that reveal Rydendale made his money as a slave runner. Slim is farm now belongs in the hands of a Black couple, rather than a
furious, assuming that Hattie had kept this family secret from white, slave-owning man. From that point of view, it’s a roundabout
him, but the cabinet was locked her entire life. She calms Slim reparation.
down, telling him neither she nor her father are personally
responsible and that everything has “come full circle” now that
he is a co-owner of the farm with her.
Hattie has her own secret. At 14 she got pregnant by a boy Growing up in an almost all white town, Hattie was used to being
named Bobby. Hattie never got attention from boys, so when ignored by boys. Her Blackness made her undesirable in their eyes.
Bobby notices her she’s thrilled. They have sex in the church In her excitement that comes with finally being noticed, Hattie ends
pews one day, though Hattie doesn’t remember it happening. up pregnant. The pregnancy is traumatic for her physically and
He doesn’t talk to her again after that. Hattie hates being emotionally. She struggles with internalized blame while at the
pregnant and feels stupid for falling for Bobby. Her parents same time contends with her father’s shame, which is what leads to
decide to keep her hidden until she gives birth. Grace delivers their decision to keep her hidden. Joseph exerts patriarchal
the baby, loves her, and wants to keep her. Hattie is unsure how authority over both Grace and Hattie when he takes Barbara away
she feels, but names her Barbara. Hattie’s parents fight worse against their wishes. He is more concerned with protecting his pride
than ever before over whether to keep Barbara. The first time than he is worried about the emotional damage this decision will
Joseph comes to see the baby he takes her away despite cause. He doesn’t want Hattie to be “ruined” for marriage, putting
Hattie’s protests. He tells her no one can ever know about the some future man’s comfort above his own daughter in the present.
baby because it will ruin her life and marriage prospects.
Marriage is the last thing on Hattie’s mind.
Hattie still has Barbara’s baby blanket, which she’s never Barbara is a ghost that haunts Hattie the same way that her
washed, hoping it would smell like her for as long as possible. mother, Grace, was haunted by her mysterious, unknown father.
She used to imagine Barbara was adopted by royalty. She never Hattie so deeply internalized her father’s shame over Barbara that
tells anyone about the baby, just as Joseph instructed—not she kept her existence a secret from even Slim, the most beloved
even Slim or her children. Back in the present, Ada Mae wakes person in her life. Her daughter, Ada Mae, who takes her for granted,
Hattie up when she checks to see if she’s still alive from where wakes her up from this dream of the sister that she’ll never know.
she’s fallen asleep at the Christmas dinner table. Hattie is
startled from her dream of the sister that Ada Mae doesn’t
know she has.
CHAPTER 4: GRACE
Grace’s mother, Daisy, tells her that her father, Wolde, was an Daisy is attracted to Wolde because he represents a far-off culture
Abyssinian seaman who she met while he was on a stopover in and different way of life. Her naïve, youthful love leads to her teen
South Shields in 1895. Daisy, 16, gets pregnant and he doesn’t pregnancy that will parallel her great-granddaughter, Hattie’s, own
find out until she’s about to give birth. Daisy describes him as teen pregnancy years later. Daisy spends the rest of her life waiting
otherworldly because he’s unlike the boys in her town and had for Wolde to come back and deliver on his promise to make a home
been all over the world. He doesn’t speak English, so their and family with her.
conversations are limited, but before he sails off he tells Daisy
he’ll come back for her. Daisy promises that they’ll go looking
for him one day to show him the daughter he left behind.

Daisy gives birth in the tenement she shares with her large Daisy’s father reacts to her pregnancy in much the same way that
family. When her father sees that the baby is “a half-caste,” he’s Hattie’s will two generations into the future. He demands that she
furious and ashamed. He tells her to give it up, but unable to give the baby away in order to protect his own pride and reputation.
abandon her child, she moves out instead and cuts her mom off This demand is compounded by his fury that the baby is mixed race.
for not being strong enough to stand up to her father. Daisy Both racism and sexism intersect here to drive Daisy out of her
gets a job at a factory and lives with another young woman who family and onto the streets. Having lost her first home, Daisy
has a child. Daisy has little money but takes care of Grace the dreams of building a new one for herself and her daughter in the
best she can. She promises to move to the countryside where countryside.
Grace can run free and she can find a husband who will be a
good father.
Daisy is diagnosed with tuberculosis when Grace is eight. She’s Like many of the working class and poor, Daisy falls victim to her
put into quarantine, leaving Grace with the other young mother harsh living and working conditions before she can escape poverty
they live with. Not wanting to take care of Grace, Daisy’s and make her dreams come true. In a cruel twist of fate, Grace
roommate sends her to the girl’s home she herself had grown makes it out to the countryside, like Daisy had dreamed, but to live
up in. In this unfamiliar home in the countryside, the other girls alone in the care of strangers. When Grace arrives in the majority
gawk at Grace’s brown skin and hair. She explains, proudly, that white countryside and girls home, she’s faced with her peers’
her dad was Abyssinian, remembering that her mother told her ignorance and racism. However, her mother, although she was a
never to be ashamed of where he was from. white woman, instilled in Grace a deep pride in her racial and ethnic
identity that allows Grace to stay afloat in this new place. This pride
will be lost generations later when Sonny and Ada Mae make
desperate attempts to distance themselves from their Blackness.
Grace has nightmares that wake the others, who tell her she’ll Grace is haunted by the ghosts of her parents. The horrifying image
adjust soon. She curls up in her blanket remembering her of her mother’s forced departure is seared into her mind, a trauma
mother’s promises that she’d never leave her, remembers that that will follow her for the rest of her life. With her mother gone,
her mother screamed out that she’d be back as she was she’s lost the only home and family she had. Her mysterious father
dragged off to the sanatorium. Every time someone knocks on becomes her only hope of ever having a home and family again.
the door of the home, she hopes that it’s her mother, but She was already intrigued by the mystery of her father’s identity, but
eventually that hope fades. She starts dreaming that her father now her desire to know him is even greater.
will come instead to take her away to his paradise.
At the home, Grace learns how to cook, clean, sew, and garden The girls home begins to feel like a warm and supportive community
alongside reading and math. They have the girls walk with that fills at least some of the void that her parents left behind. Grace
books on their heads in deportment class and Grace imagines continues to remain deeply proud of her Ethiopian heritage and
she’s from Abyssinia and walking on air. Her teacher tells her mixed-race identity. Grace is targeted unfairly for discipline at
she has a natural elegance, which makes Grace proud. The girls school, like many Black children are in educational settings where
in her dorm all become friends and each has their own special white teachers stereotype and expect misbehavior from Black
talents. Grace does the best impersonations and when she’s students. If she gets kicked out, Grace will be left homeless once
caught by Mrs. Langley is told she has too much personality, more.
which is unattractive in a girl. Grace notices that she wasn’t the
only one misbehaving but the only one who got caught. She’s
scared while she’s being reprimanded because girls who
misbehave can be kicked out.

Grace is told that she’s not like the other girls and needs to be While the women at the school claim to be “enlightened,” they are
on her best behavior because her life will be hard and full of perpetuating racism against Grace by singling her out and telling
rejections by people who are “less enlightened” than the people her that she needs to change her personality. These white women
at school. Mrs. Langley tells her to “tone down” her personality highlight how even those who believe they have good intentions can
and exercise restraint. She threatens to kick her out onto the perpetuate harm. They think they’re helping Grace by trying to
streets where she’ll be forced into prostitution. She threatens prepare her for adult life in a discriminatory world but are harming
that if she doesn’t behave the school won’t be able to her emotionally in the process. At the end of the day, they see only
recommend her for employment as a maid. Grace commits to two options for a Black girl in life: sex work or housekeeping. Their
becoming restrained and decorous. own biases keep them from fighting for any other future for her.
Rather than encourage her to break barriers and dream big, they
predetermine her future. Fearful of the material consequences she
would face if kicked out, Grace gives in to behaving in a way that
makes the white people around her feel comfortable.
Grace hoped to become an assistant at a department store, and Grace dreamed of reforming society, breaking racial barriers in
breaks into tears when, instead, Mrs. Langley finds her a job as employment by working in a department store. Instead, she
a maid for a baron who’d just returned to his family’s castle becomes a maid for a baron who made his wealth on the backs of
after years away running a plantation in India. The baron has people of color. Because he has two mixed-race children of his own,
Indian servants, an Indian mistress, and their two sons, so he takes Grace on, but it’s clear his racism runs deep. He has Indian
doesn’t have a problem having a “half-caste” maid. Years later servants and the mother of his children is his “mistress,” not his wife.
she’s shopping in the department store, the last place she When confronted with her two former classmates who are oblivious
wants to be after a manager had shut the door on her when she to their own privilege, Grace realizes that no matter how smart she
asked for a job. Two girls from the home are working, and they is or how hard she works, some opportunities will be denied her no
complain about the job, enraging Grace who suffers harder matter what on the basis of her race alone.
conditions as a maid even though she was just as smart as the
rest of the girls at school.
Grace finds the material she needs for her dress. She and the As Grace walks home from the store lost in her thoughts that she’ll
other maids are making themselves “risqué” dresses that fall never be rich and regal like the woman she works for, she’s
below the knee. She’d seen the lady of the house and her rich intercepted by the man who will invite her into a life far more
friends modeling this look. Grace knows she’ll never look like privileged than her current one. While this white man doesn’t look
them but is happy she’ll have a trendy dress for the rare special at her through a hypersexual gaze, he exoticizes her from the minute
occasions she gets to enjoy. As she’s walking home through the he meets her. While he intends his line about her being the Lady of
busy town, a man approaches her and says she “must be the the Nile as a compliment, he’s imposing a fantasy of otherness onto
Lady of the Nile.” The man has bright red hair and blue eyes. He her. Grace, after all, is English and has never even left the country.
doesn’t ogle her the way other men do.
He introduces himself as Joseph Rydendale and, as he walks Like Hattie will be years later, Grace is thrilled that a man is paying
her across the street, tells her he’s just left the bank where he her positive attention. She’s used to going unnoticed or being
made a large deposit. Grace guesses he’s trying to impress her, excluded as a woman of color in this white, rural town. In Joseph she
something a man has never tried to do with her before, and she finds a man who not only respects her body but is attracted to her
is impressed. Unlike the seedy men who call her a tease, he regardless of her race. It’s clear Joseph is rich, and his wealth plus
seems like a good man. Up until this point she’s been able to his whiteness will give Grace access to privileges she’d be otherwise
fend off advances from the types of men who assault women or denied.
leave them pregnant, once even suffering a close call with a
guest who snuck into the servants’ quarters. She’d accepted
that she’d likely be single her whole life because no man wanted
a “mongrel” as she was often called.

Joseph survived World War I unscathed, unlike many of his Greenfields farm is an important family legacy that Joseph invites
compatriots. He returned home to his family farm, Greenfields, Grace to share in. Joseph devotes himself to rebuilding this home,
and found it in disrepair. His father had gone senile and and it provides Grace with the true home she’s been without since
wandered the fields in his underwear searching for his long- her mother’s death. Additionally, Grace makes her mother’s dream
dead wife. It takes him years to restore the farm and when he’s of a home and family in the countryside come true when she finds a
finished he’s ready for a wife. After years spent abroad, good husband in Joseph and moves onto his farm in the idyllic
however, none of the girls back home attract him until he sees countryside.
Grace on the street. Grace soon starts to fall in love with
Joseph, who visits her at the estate where she works every
Sunday. When Joseph proposes to her, Grace can’t believe that
a man truly wants her. They marry and move to the farm.
Joseph’s father, who died three months prior, never would have Joseph and Grace’s relationship suffers the scrutiny that many
approved of their relationship. The day he brings her home on interracial relationships do. Grace is spared having to confront
his horse cart, the townspeople stare at Grace, never having racist in-laws, but their town is so rural their neighbors haven’t seen
seen a Black person before and shocked that she was able to a Black person before. That she’s with Joseph makes them hate her
“steal” one of the most desired men in town. The townspeople even more, and she’s left with the burden of slowly gaining their
eventually warm to her because her accent reveals that she’s acceptance. The racism she experiences in this town never shakes
“local-enough.” But she still faces racism. The grocer threw her her pride. She’s not ashamed to be Black, just as her mother taught
change down on the counter rather than hand it to her, so she her.
does the exact same thing when she goes to pay the next time.
She walked away “with her Abyssinian nose in the air” thinking
her mother would be proud.
Greenfields farmhouse was dirty and dark compared to the With Grace’s new life comes a sudden role reversal. She adopts the
estate Grace had grown used to living on. Joseph had a maid behaviors of the rich people she spent years serving, and after years
who he said would do all the housework so Grace could do as spent as a maid, she now has one of her own. Still, Grace’s new life
she pleased, which she finds amusing both because she’d been and status don’t erase her race and the discrimination that comes
a maid herself so recently and because the house was still filthy. with it. The maid Joseph hires, a white woman, refuses to work for a
Grace begins to act and speak like the rich people she served at Black woman, a move that would go against the white supremacist
the estate. She notices that the maid doesn’t take orders from hierarchy of English society. Grace has made it into the white,
her the way she does from Joseph, that she refuses to listen to English elite, but even from the inside she’s met with discrimination.
“a half-caste, a negress.” Grace tells Joseph to fire the maid, Tending to this house feels different now that she owns the property.
which he does, and finds that she likes doing housework now It’s a source of pride and empowerment.
that she’s doing it for herself.
The house starts to come back to life and Grace convinces Grace is creating the home of her dreams after losing so much in her
Joseph to refurbish the house in preparation for their future youth. He still loves all of her features that made her unlovable in
children. They fill the house with new furniture and jazz the eyes of most men. The cabinet in the library contains the secret
records. They dance into the night and read and talk for hours. of the farm’s origins that Hattie and Slim uncover years later. When
Joseph loves her curls and she can’t believe he loves the thick Joseph puts the lock on his cabinet, it’s clear that he wants to hide
hair she’d always been embarrassed by. The only part of the his family’s involvement in the slave trade from Grace. He fears how
house she doesn’t clean is the cabinet in the library that Joseph this knowledge would impact her love for this new home she’s
says is full of important records that can’t be thrown out. He settling into.
says he’ll deal with it eventually, but for now puts a lock on it.

When they have sex, Joseph calls Grace “his expedition into Although Joseph loves Grace, he continues to exoticize her. In their
Africa.” He compares himself to Dr. Livingstone heading down sex life, his Dr. Livingston fantasy reveals how he still views Grace
the Nile. Grace reminds him she’s Abyssinian and Joseph through problematic, white supremacist lenses. Dr. Livingston was
responds: “whatever you say, Gracie.” Joseph wants ten sons, an “explorer” and missionary of colonial England. Joseph positions
but Gracie thinks five children would be enough and wants at himself as colonial explorer, dominating and conquering Grace.
least two daughters. In their efforts she suffers two When Grace tries to remind him that she’s actually Ethiopian he
miscarriages. Then she gives birth to a boy who dies hours after brushes her off, revealing that he loves her not so much because of
delivery. Grace becomes severely depressed. She and Joseph who she really is, but because of the racialized fantasy he’s built up
can’t speak of the losses. Finally a daughter, Lily, arrives and around her. Sex becomes another form of domination, another way
survives for one year, two months, and four days before passing of making Joseph’s dreams a reality, when they set out to try and
away in her sleep. have the sons he wants. However, death arrives and starts to break
up Grace’s new, happy home, the way it did when her mother got
sick and she lost her home for the first time.
Joseph doesn’t give Grace any time to grieve because he’s Joseph puts his own desire for patrilineal legacy over his wife’s
desperate for an heir to the 120-year-old family farm. Grace physical and mental well-being. He is determined to uphold
suddenly understands how much the farm means to him as his patriarchal norms by handing power and privilege down to a male
way of honoring his ancestors. Joseph starts drinking and is heir. Soon this series of devastating losses, along with Joseph’s
angry all the time. When they have sex he’s more a robot than a unyielding obsession, ruins their relationship. Grace sacrifices
lover, concerned only with impregnating her. She endures the herself to try and give him what he wants, even when it comes at
sex, committed to her role in helping him continue the family the cost of her connection to her own body. Joseph’s love for
legacy. She’s afraid he’ll leave her if she can’t provide. They don’t National Geographic likewise symbolizes his exotification of
read on the couch together anymore, instead sit across the people of color. He becomes a colonial explorer when lost in its
room from one another as he reads National Geographic and she pages, internalizing stereotypes that he then applies to his wife.
reads anything that gets her mind off her “body that [gives]
birth to death.” They stop sleeping together at night.
Grace gives birth to another daughter. After three brutal days Grace is severely traumatized from the losses she suffered without
of labor, Grace refuses to name or breastfeed the girl, being allowed to recover and heal. However, Hattie’s namesake
convinced that she’s doomed to die. Joseph names the baby imbues her with the power Joseph wanted her to inherit: she lives
Harriet after his grandmother who’d lived a long and healthy well into her 90s. From the minute she’s born, Joseph celebrates her
life. Joseph knows that Hattie will survive, that she’s “a fighter” strength, challenging gender norms of the time. Joseph’s insistence
even though she’s a girl. He stops talking to Grace, who views that Grace birth him an heir has not only broken their relationship,
Harriet as a screaming demon unlike her peaceful baby Lily. but Grace’s relationship with her newborn daughter, which is too
Grace is severely depressed for months, unable to do anything. painful for her to bear.
A nanny moves in to care for Harriet.
Grace becomes suicidal and one night Joseph catches her Although their relationship is broken, Joseph doesn’t want to lose
looking at the kitchen knives. He snatches one from her hand, Grace or the life and home they’d built together. Joseph threatens to
warning her “don’t you dare.” She thinks about drowning herself take her to the asylum, paralleling Grace’s separation from her own
in the nearby lake and Joseph threatens to take her to the mother, Daisy, who was removed to an asylum where she died alone
asylum. She is too miserable to care. Their relationship is from tuberculosis. Grace is so depressed at this point that this near
broken, the powerful love they shared is only a memory. When repeat of history doesn’t even register or scare her. In Joseph eyes,
Joseph tries to force Grace to mother Harriet, she walks away and society’s, there is nothing worse than a woman who won’t care
refusing to even touch her. He calls her a “wicked woman” and for their child. Per traditional gender roles, a woman’s duty in life is
says she’s failing at her duty. to sacrifice herself and her own well-being for the sake of her child.

Grace feels as alone as she did when her mother was taken Grace feels as rootless and homeless as she did when she was
from her, and wishes she was here now to guide her. Harriet is separated from her mother. The home she’d finally found with
30 months old when Grace’s depression breaks suddenly one Joseph at Greenfield is slipping away. Grace’s depression lifts
morning. She can see the world again the way it was before her suddenly and without explanation. Perhaps the memory of her
dread settled down as a thick fog. She gets showered and separation from her mother and the emotional fallout she suffered
dressed, then walks into the kitchen where Harriet and the pushes her to make sure that her own daughter doesn’t grow up
nanny are eating breakfast. Grace looks like an entirely new motherless. Harriet is two years old and has bonded with the nanny,
person to Harriet, and Grace, really looking at Harriet for the hardly recognizing her mother in her post-depression state. Grace is
first time, sees a healthy baby girl. Grace notices that Harriet hurt that her child hardly knows her, and bestowing her with a new
and the nanny have grown too close. Grace sits close to Harriet nickname is her way of reclaiming the girl and starting to rebuild
and announces that everyone will call her Hattie now. Hattie their relationship.
sits on Grace’s lap only after the nanny urges her to, which
hurts Grace. Later that day Grace reads to Hattie outside while
Joseph looks on stunned.
Grace carries out a conversation with her mother in her head. Grace had never been able to find her mother and father, who both
She tells her how she and Hattie found each other once her remained lost to her forever. She finds Hattie, and in the process
darkness lifted. She loved her and gave her everything she rediscovers the home and family she’d created with Joseph, the
wanted. Hattie and Joseph were close, too, and he let her home and family she’d been searching for since losing her parents all
follow him around the farm, teaching her to work and not those years ago. The farm and the home and family it represents is
caring that she was a girl. Grace wishes her mother was there meaningful to both Grace and Joseph, who instill that value in
to be Hattie’s grandmother and see how strong she was. She Hattie. As she grows up, they root her identity in the land that she
mourns that her mother missed her own growing up and the lives and works on. Joseph has made peace with the fact that he
love she shares with Joseph. She wishes that her mother could doesn’t have a son, and instead allows Hattie to break traditional
have met Hattie’s American husband Slim, and her gender roles of the time, teaching her everything she needs to know
grandchildren, Ada Mae and Sonny, that Grace herself only to maintain the family farm and legacy. Hattie will later extend the
knew for a few years. She remembers how happy Joseph was same privileges to her gender-defiant granddaughter Morgan,
when Sonny was born. Finally there was a boy to keep the showing how this piece of Joseph lives on in Hattie. Although he'd
family’s legacy alive. made peace with not having a son of his own, Joseph still believes
the farm should return to male hands through his grandson, Sonny,
but won’t live to see how little that legacy will mean to Sonny.
CHAPTER 5: THE AFTER-PARTY

Amma enters the after-party of The Last Amazon of Dahomey Roland narrates the beginning of chapter five, becoming the only
and is greeted with a champagne toast, ecstatic round of male narrator in this chorus of voices. His narration highlights
applause, and Roland, who kisses her on the cheeks. She looks Amma’s entry into the mainstream where he’s existed for years at
beautiful in a wraparound dress that she’s paired incongruously this point. The play’s resounding success marks her transition from
with sneakers, an homage to her rebellious teenage self. radical to reformer and puts the play’s radical subject matter into
Everyone agrees the play is a success. A “usually savage pit-bull question. Amma’s story, by and for Black women, is radical, but its
of a critic” has already given it a five-star review. She’s finally place on a mainstream stage threatens to dilute that radicalness.
achieved the large-scale success that Roland told her she could Roland’s comment about “multi-culti Shakespeares” likewise
have had earlier if she’d produced some “multi-culti questions the radical potential of the cultural mainstream. Racially
Shakespeares” early in her career rather than her “agit-prop non-traditional casting, the practice of having people of color play
rants.” traditionally white roles in white-authored narratives, can be viewed
both as a sign of progress or a lazy attempt at diversity and
inclusion.

Roland spots “Chairman Mao Sylvester” who he’d hooked up Roland’s derisive nickname for Sylvester underscores the division
with in his younger, partying years. Reminiscing on those days between radicals and reformers. On the other hand, their queer
isn’t nostalgic, but a reminder of “El Diablo” who took so many identities, and their shared experience of loss during the AIDS
of their peers. Sylvester reluctantly admits to Roland that the epidemic, brought them together, pointing to the potential for
play is Amma’s best work, but he’s still resentful that she sold radical and reformer to unite. Sylvester admits that this is Amma’s
out to the “Boring Suits” who are scattered throughout the best play yet, but couches that compliment in a further criticism.
party. Sylvester rants against the corporate sell-outs. Roland is Similarly, Sylvester is unwilling to acknowledge Roland’s success.
still upset that Sylvester has never acknowledged his success. Roland desperately wants his approval while at the same time he is
He rehearses what he’s going to say about the play on the news unwilling to reciprocate and acknowledge Sylvester’s successes in
the following day out loud to Sylvester. life. Both Roland and Sylvester are uncompromising in their views,
representing on a larger scale how both radicals and reformers
struggle to acknowledge that each side contributes to overall social
change.
Annoyed with Roland’s academic ramblings, Sylvester cuts him Having cultural capital means having knowledge, skills, and
off and walks away. This deeply offends Roland, who thinks, behaviors considered valuable within a particular culture and
“you can keep your social conscience, Comrade” because Roland community, often the dominant culture in a society. In Roland’s case
has cultural capital, which he sees as a far more powerful he’s referring to the knowledge, skills, and behaviors he’s developed
currency. Roland is “too sophisticated” to shout at Sylvester, so in order to gain access into the mainstream, white and patriarchal
he suppresses the urge. He spots Shirley, whose outfit he English society around him. To Roland, cultural capital and the
derides for being old-fashioned, and Dominique, who is still material benefits that come with it are more important that social
“sexy in a dykey-bikey way.” He sees his partner, Kenny, fawning consciousness, which offers an internal, moral reward. Roland’s
over a Black security man. They’ve been together 24 years and proximity to whiteness and white culture is also seen in his romantic
are polyamorous. Roland ruminates on the simple fact that he life. Roland’s preference for white lovers can be read as a symptom
“prefers white flesh” while Kenny prefers black. of internalized racism. He elevates whiteness in his interpersonal life
the same way he does in his professional life, where he strives to
retain his position among the “educated classes,” teaching the white,
male canon in his college courses and contributing to mainstream
news media. Kenny’s race is never specified, but given Roland’s
preference for white partners, it’s reasonable to infer that Kenny is
likely white. A white person’s preference for a racial category outside
their own always risks crossing the line into fetishization. Both
Kenny and Roland highlight the way in which race and racism
intersect with romantic desire and sexuality.

Roland walks outside and looks out onto the Thames. He loves Roland contends with a political climate that is marked by a rising
London and the city loves him back. But the current political tide of conservative and far-right extremism of which Brexit and its
trends threaten to disrupt this equilibrium. He remembers a advocates are but one branch. Roland highlights how Black people
recent appearance on BBC news with a “Brexiteer” who called in white supremacist Britain are condemned no matter what they
him “a metropolitan elite” at odds with the “ordinary and choose to do. When his family chose to live in the countryside they
hardworking” British outside of the city. Roland is angry were chased out by racism. Now successful and living in the city,
because, as a son of working-class African immigrants, he Roland is condemned for that, too. Roland’s predicament highlights
worked hard to ascend the ranks of class and education to how white-supremacist society will never accept people of color,
where he is now. He asks the commenter if he means to even when they assimilate and work hard to achieve mainstream
suggest that Black people should work only in service success. In fact, that success becomes fuel for increased division.
professions. Roland tells the Brexiteer that his family was Roland is more materially successful than many working-class white
chased out of the English countryside by racists mere months people living in rural areas and small towns, and this flies in the face
after they arrived from Gambia. He explains that this is why of white supremacy.
Black people made their homes in cities.
While responding to the critique, Roland thinks to himself that For Roland, being Black is just one piece of his identity, but society
he’s loath to use the word black, which he thinks is “crude.” The often sees him through the lens of his racial identity alone. He
audience cheers Roland on. The debate ends and he’s the clear resents that Black people working in academia and the public eye
winner, but rather than feel proud he’s angry that he had to are often turned into a de facto spokesperson for the Black
discuss race and that he's viewed “as a spokesman for cultural community. Roland wants to speak on the issues that he has
diversity” when the debate goes viral. Roland is decidedly not knowledge of and that he’s dedicated his life’s work to. Roland
an ambassador of cultural diversity. doesn’t even like the word Black, highlighting how the language of
identity means different things for different people.
An arm around his waist interrupts this memory. He’s happy Roland was only more motivated to pursue mainstream success
Yazz is hugging him rather than yelling at him. Yazz tells him after he decided to become a father. He wanted to provide the best
she’s so glad the play is a success and they both agree they’re life possible for his future child, and saw assimilating into society’s
proud of Amma. Roland credits Yazz with his success, dividing mainstream elite as the best possible way to give Yazz opportunities
his life into “Before Yazz” and “After Yazz” eras. He was he didn’t grow up with. Ironically, now that Yazz is a college student
honored when Amma asked him to be her sperm donor and co- deeply invested in radical politics, the life and identity that Roland
parent, and he wanted to be as successful as possible for his chose for Yazz now separates them. Yazz is overly critical of Roland
future child. for being too mainstream, not acknowledging that the economic
privileges he was able to provide her growing up contributed to her
ability to become who she is and pursue the life she wants.

While Amma’s career is intertwined with her identities, his has Roland’s life as a reformer versus Amma’s as a radical reflects their
never been that way. Roland hates that Black intellectuals, like respective understandings of identity. For Amma her racial, sexual,
all Black people in Britain, are still so defined by their race. He and gender identities are the most important pieces of who she is,
sees his Blackness and gayness as “footnotes” in his life, genetic and they drive her work. Roland sees his work and intellectual
factors he was born into. He doesn’t feel like he can identify as interests as the most important pieces of his identity. Unlike Amma
Gambian since he immigrated when he was only two. Early in who is a second-generation child of immigrants, Roland himself is a
his career he decided to become a part of the establishment first-generation immigrant; however, because he immigrated to the
that wasn’t going to accept him. He decided against “carrying U.K. at such a young age, he feels he can’t claim a Gambian identity.
the burden of representation,” which would hold him back Although he’s always known that he’ll never be fully accepted by the
while white people, who aren’t expected to represent their mainstream, he made the decision to work from within as a
entire race, would easily get ahead. reformer regardless, thinking it was the best of his available options.
He knows that, as a Black man, and especially one who is successful
in the mainstream, public eye, society will often expect him to
represent his entire race, as if that’s even possible. Roland resists
this as much as possible, not only because it’s an unreasonable
expectation, but because it’s a heavy weight to carry that white
people, who are seen only as their own, individual selves, don’t have
to carry.
From the moment Yazz was born, Roland has loved Yazz more Roland worries about Yazz’s decision to be a radical like her mother
than he loves anyone else, even Kenny. Like Amma, she refuses because he knows how the world already punishes Black people in
to play by the rules, and he’s worried what will happen to her in general. It’s not so much that he disagrees with her radicalness, but
a world that punishes rebels. He wants her to become he worries and wants the best for her in a society that he knows will
“proficient in the discourse of diplomacy.” Yazz comments how try and hinder her success at every turn. Just as Roland wishes that
the skyline looks so beautiful at night, which launches Roland Sylvester would acknowledge his success, he wants Yazz to
into a lecture about the ancient predecessors of skyscrapers. acknowledge his successes too, especially because they provided
Yazz drifts off to talk to an androgynous, tattooed person. her with so many opportunities in life. Everything he’s done has
Roland is overcome with an emptiness as she leaves. He misses been for her.
how she loved him so unconditionally when she was young. So
many people are stunned by his success. All he wants Yazz to
say is a simple “you done good, Dad.”

Carole stands alone in a corner, self-conscious about the fact The narration suddenly shifts to Carole’s perspective. Carole and
that she and the other bankers in their business attire look out the other mainstream professionals at the after-party stand out
of place at this after-party. Her husband, Freddy, works his way among the crowd that is predominantly made up of radical hippie-
around the room charming everyone with his “upper-class types like Amma and her friends. The National has brought these
confidence.” Carole envies his natural social skills. Carole was two different groups, the reformers and the radicals, together, but
intrigued by the play, but didn’t know much about Benin, the there’s still a clear divide between the two groups despite the fact
neighbor of her parents’ homeland, Nigeria, which she also that each has assisted the other in achieving social change. Even
knows little about. Her lack of knowledge about her heritage though Bummi once felt Carole was rejecting her Nigerian heritage,
isn’t her fault. Her mother couldn’t return to Nigeria after her Carole still yearns to connect with that part of herself. Whereas
parents’ deaths. Carole understands that her mother will Bummi blames England and Carole’s choice to assimilate into white,
“never be one of those West African matrons one sees at English culture for her distance from her Nigerian heritage, Carole
airports with a trolley-full of excess baggage.” Carole would like blames Bummi for never taking her back to visit. Carole
to visit Nigeria one day with her mother, Freddy, and Kofi, who understands that her mother’s trauma is what prevents her from
she loves because he’s perfect for her mom. visiting, but still seems to wish that her mother was one of those
immigrant women traveling between their home countries and
native countries with overflowing bags full of gifts for family back
home, and, on the return, specialties from their homelands
unavailable in their adopted countries. This conflict highlights how
first-generation parents, and their second-generation children, often
struggle to understand one another and have different perspectives
on the same issues. Carole wants to take Freddy to Nigeria to share
and experience that culture with him, too, especially given that he
has always shown interest in her Nigerian heritage.
Carole felt embarrassed when confronted with a stage full of Amma’s play was a major cultural achievement for the Black
Black women “as dark or darker” than her. She may have felt community, and especially Black women. However, Carole’s
validated if the play was about a black woman achieving discomfort with the play highlights the limits of shared racial
“legitimate success,” rather than a bunch of lesbian warriors. identity. Although the women on stage look like Carole, she didn’t
During the intermission she noticed white audience-members feel represented by or reflected in it as a woman whose life and
looking at her with more friendliness and approval. She noticed career have been devoted to achieving mainstream, professional
that there were more Black women in the audience than she’d success. Despite the fact that Carole doesn’t feel represented by the
ever seen at the National. They’re decked out in “extravagant play, both the white people and Black women in the audience
head ties,” “voodoo-type necklaces,” and “leather pouches assume that she does. The white audience members are hyper-
containing spells (probably).” They give Carole the “black aware of Carole at the intermission, regarding her with a new
sisterhood nod, as if the play somehow connected them kindness and approval after seeing Black women on the stage of a
together.” She panics at the thought that the nod might be the theater as esteemed as The National. Their kind intentions are
“black lesbian sisterhood nod,” which prompts her to grab onto undermined by their assumption that Carole relates to the play, in
Freddy. effect reducing all Black women to one collective entity. On the
other hand, the Black women likewise assume that Carole feels
represented by the play. Carole’s description of their outfits
highlights how she sees herself as totally different from these
women who share her racial identity. Carole’s homophobia is
another factor that separates her from these women.

She’s ready to leave the party when she spots Mrs. Shirley King Shirley is the one who guided Carole towards her success, and
walking towards her. Carole and Shirley are mutually shocked encouraged her to assimilate into white, English society. Now both
to find each other at this most unlikely of places after all these she and Carole have devoted their lives to reforming systems from
years. Shirley notices Carole looks elegant and refined, which within and are too mainstream to like Amma’s play. Shirley’s
she takes as a sign that she’s been successful and makes her resentment that Carole never thanked her or stayed in touch is
feel frumpy in comparison. She’s suddenly overcome with compounded by her realization that Carole—in her elegant clothes
anger and old feelings that Carole failed to keep in touch after and with her elite job—has surpassed Shirley. The power dynamic in
all she’d done for her. Carole greets Shirley with an the relationship has shifted. Although Shirley doesn’t like the play,
unrecognizable accent and reveals that she’s a banker. They she is still proud of Amma, but her homophobia prevents her from
agree that they aren’t very into the play, though Shirley feels fully expressing that pride.
ashamed for betraying Amma. She wishes she could boast
about her friend in the teacher’s lounge but can’t, given that it’s
about lesbians.
Carole assumes Shirley must be retired, but Shirley tells her Shirley is comfortable expressing her true opinions of her students
she’s still working at the “insane asylum” that continues to to Carole because Carole has climbed the social ladder and
churn out the next generation of “prostitutes, drug dealers, and achieved mainstream success. Carole, however, is horrified, and
crackheads.” Shirley laughs at her own comment, expecting Shirley positions herself as the “rescuer” or “savior” of her
Carole to do the same, but instead Carole looks astounded. exceptional students like Carole. This condescending approach
Shirley tries to backtrack, explaining that she still “rescues” the undermines Carole’s agency as an individual whose success was
exceptional students. Shirley flushes with embarrassment, ultimately earned through her own hard work. Shirley is mirroring
while Carole wishes Freddy would deliver her from this the white savior trope that is common in under-resourced public
awkward interaction with this old, sweating woman. She’s schools. Carole remembers the immense power that Shirley once
shocked that Shirley is so nervous when, the last time they’d held over her, and that power is rooted in Shirley’s savior complex.
seen each other, Shirley held an abusive power over her. Now, however, Carole also realizes that the power dynamic has
shifted. Shirley is noticeably flustered, revealing that she’s
intimidated and embarrassed in front of her student who has now
far surpassed her.
They sit in an awkward silence until Shirley says goodbye. Carole is surprised to see a glimmer of vulnerability underneath
Carole sees a sad glint in her eyes, surprised to see she seems Shirley’s brash comments and actions. That one glimmer of sadness
capable of having feelings. Carole suddenly sees Shirley in Shirley’s eyes allows Carole to see through to her complexities.
through adult eyes, not the eyes of an angry teenager, and She realizes that Shirley has good intentions, but executed and
realizes that she was doing her best even if she went about it in communicated them poorly. In other words, Carole suddenly gets a
the wrong way. Worried she’s upset the old woman, she tells glimpse of the teacher Shirley was when she first started teaching,
Shirley that she owes her an overdue thank you for all she’d years before Carole was her student. When Carole finally gives
done to help her. Shirley insists that she was only doing her Shirley the thanks she wants, Shirley downplays it as if she doesn’t
duty as a teacher, and that Carole’s success was thanks enough. want to claim any credit, despite how she’d claimed credit all those
Shirley starts crying, and it’s only in this moment that Carole years ago at Carole’s graduation. When she breaks down in tears,
realizes that Mrs. King helped her when no one else could. baring her vulnerability completely, Carole understands that despite
her many imperfections, Shirley was an invaluable mentor to her.
While she wasn’t Carole’s savior, she was a key piece of her young
life and later success.

Embarrassed by her uncontrollable emotions, Shirley rushes The narration shifts again, this time to Shirley’s perspective. Shirley
off feeling lighter and excited to tell Lennox about this feels out of place at the after-party not just because it’s filled with
encounter. She’s eager to leave the party, which she finds free-spirited progressives like Amma, but because it has an air of
grating. She’d rather be at a party where everyone is like them pretention and elitism that feels alienating to her. While that
and where there’s “rice, peas, curry goat simmering […] in the superiority from people like Roland used to make her feel badly
kitchen.” Searching for Lennox, she spies Roland who she got to about herself, now it seems absurd to her and makes her laugh.
know after she became Yazz’s godmother, and who she used to Shirley contradicts herself, however, because she projects a similar
dislike because he made her feel inferior. Now his air of superiority over her students and their families. Like Carole,
superiority makes her laugh. although she’s at an after-party for a groundbreaking play by a
Black woman playwright and featuring a Black women cast, Shirley
doesn’t feel like she is surrounded by her people. People “like them”
are people who attend informal gatherings in each other’s kitchens,
eating the foods of the Caribbean diaspora.
Shirley wants to find Amma so she can say goodbye, but spots Although Shirley tells herself that Roland’s superiority complex no
Dominique making her way over to her first. Earlier in the night longer bothers her, it’s clear she still feels inadequate compared to
when Dominique asked Shirley about her life, she felt Amma and the people in her life, including both Yazz and
Dominique looking down on her “pathetic little life.” Shirley was Dominique. While Amma and Shirley’s friendship has survived all
never jealous of Amma and Dominique’s friendship because these years thanks to the loyalty that comes with a shared history,
she and Amma had already drifted apart ideologically at that Shirley has existed in that friendship knowing that Amma’s friends
point. They maintained a friendship based on loyalty and look down on her, and that even Amma herself looks down on
history. She wanted to say goodbye to Amma, who she’d hardly people like Shirley. Shirley is the one exception to her strict
had a chance to speak to at the party, but instead lets her walk expectation that everyone in her life be as progressive as she is. She
off with Dominique. She and Lennox finally leave the party, lets Amma walk away at the party, symbolic of how they continue to
passing Yazz on the way out who, earlier, hadn’t introduced drift from one another. Instead, Shirley is content to retreat back
Shirley to her edgy-looking friends, a slight she assumes means into her life and the simple pleasures that she enjoys with her
Yazz thinks she’s boring. Shirley’s happy to be heading home husband.
where she and Lennox will drink hot chocolate and watch The
Great British Bake Off.
Tucked away in the bathroom, Amma waits while Dominique The narration shifts to Dominique’s perspective. Dominique and
cuts lines of coke just like it’s the old days. No amount of Amma have the ability to jump back into their friendship as if no
distance or time can dilute their friendship. They get high, time has passed at all while they’ve been oceans apart. When they
Dominique remembering that this used to be their opening get back together they revert to the selves they once were as young
night ritual. Amma asks Dominique if she truly liked her play, twenty-something radicals living in London. Amma, still feeling
and Dominique reassures her like she has been doing all night. insecure about her decision to premier a play at The National, looks
Dominique took an overnight flight to surprise Amma at her to Dominique for reassurance that this doesn’t detract from her
premiere. She flies out in the morning. She rarely visits to see progressive identity. While Dominique is happy to see Amma, she
her friend’s plays because she wants to avoid all these people avoids London because it reminds her of the past self and the
from her past, like Roland and Sylvester, who she’d caught up trauma she went through with Nzinga.
with briefly earlier.

She’d unfortunately run into Shirley earlier, too, Amma’s most As Shirley suspected earlier, Dominique was looking down on her, as
boring friend, a closet homophobe who Amma nonetheless she always has. Dominique sees through Shirley’s attempts to hide
defends fiercely. Dominique thinks all these old acquaintances her homophobia. Like Amma, Dominique is hyper-critical of their
have gotten worse with time, and that their worst traits are old friends and elevates herself above them. Dominique singles out
more prominent than ever. Dominique loved the chance to see Waris the same way that Yazz does, further highlighting how people
Yazz, who is feisty as ever flanked by her cool university make assumptions about her identity based on her appearance
friends, including an especially “funky” girl in a hijab. Yazz tells alone.
her she’s her “Number One godmother,” and asks her to pay for
a trip out to Los Angeles.
Dominique takes a black and white photo out of her bag and While Dominique and Amma temporarily relive their younger,
hands it to Amma. It’s a photo of them with their middle fingers wilder days in the bathroom, when she looks at the old black and
up, triumphantly standing on an exterior balcony of the white photo Dominique knows those days are over and that they’ve
National. Amma marvels at how young they look and how both left those old identities behind. They’re no longer standing
much time has passed since those days. Dominique sees the outside the National making a bold statement against it. Instead,
photo as a relic of a bygone era. Now Amma is an unstoppable they’re on the inside and celebrating the success and acceptance
powerhouse blowing up the National Theatre. This is the praise they’d wanted all those years ago. They’ve come full circle, which is
Amma was seeking out all night, and in that moment everything what lends the moment its air of perfection.
is perfect.
Back at Amma’s place, the two friend stay up chatting long after Amma fears that the peak of her career will also be its end. She’s
the rest of Amma’s friends have gone to sleep. Amma tells broken the impenetrable glass ceiling of the National and feels there
Dominique that The Last Amazons of Dahomey is likely the peak aren’t many other avenues for making social change in theater for
of her career. She’s worried that she still has a lot left to give, her left in the U.K. Dominique sees the U.S. as a place with more
but her ability to make social change through theater will be potential, a place that despite its deep rooted, abhorrent injustices,
limited in England from here on out. Dominique agrees and also has a rich history of activism that lives on in the present. Amma
tells her to join her in the U.S. where there’s more potential, loves her country even though it frustrates her because that
despite the country’s own political problems. Amma says she frustration is what fuels her work and passion. She maintains an
doesn’t want to leave Yazz, and that she likes England even insatiable drive to make it better through social justice.
though it frustrates her endlessly.
Dominique says that she loves England, too, but that it’s a It's not just that Dominique feels the U.S. is a “younger” country
“living memory,” stuck in the past while she’s living in the literally, but that England triggers her own memories and makes her
present. Amma jokes that it sounds like she’s been talking to feel stuck in a past she needs to leave behind. Dominique suggests
her therapist, and Dominique suggests that Amma should try Amma should talk to a therapist, hearkening back to their younger
seeing one herself. Amma insists she doesn’t have any years when Amma’s friends thought she needed to see a therapist to
“disturbing psychological” issues to work out. Dominique understand her sexual promiscuity that was hurting the people she
explains that she views therapy as a type of consciousness- was with. Amma sees therapy as unnecessary, while Dominique
raising, which Amma critiques as an outdated word. sees it as something as powerful as consciousness raising, a form of
political education and activism popular during the second wave
feminist movement, once was. Amma tells Dominique the term is
outdated, perhaps because she’s been influenced by Yazz, who is
forever telling her that she is an outdated feminist herself.

Dominique asserts that feminism is making a comeback these Dominique hates that feminism is on trend because it loses some of
days. It’s on trend and Dominique hates that. Amma doesn’t its progressive edge when it’s co-opted and diluted by mainstream
understand why this is a bad thing, and Dominique explains society, similar to how Amma’s play loses some of its radicalness
that it’s because feminism is being commodified by the when it’s onstage at the National. Dominique hates that feminism
mainstream. Amma argues the media has always elevated and feminists are being glamorized in the media like celebrities,
beautiful women within the feminist movement, like Gloria, undermining their power by objectifying them, but Amma insists
Germaine, and Angela. Dominique says that the “trans this has always been true. Dominique’s transphobia reveals that her
troublemakers” these days also bother her. She was called out feminism is, in fact, outdated. She and her festival were called out
for being transphobic when she advertised her festival as being by the trans community, but rather than learn from the experience,
for “women-born-women.” The protest was started by a she regards the community with derision.
relentless Twitter activist, Morgan Malenga.
Amma points out Dominique’s hypocrisy, reminding her that Amma points out Dominique’s obvious hypocrisy. She calls the
she used to be the troublemaking protestor. Amma warns her activists “troublemakers,” showing just how far she’s come from her
that she’ll become irrelevant if she doesn’t stay open-minded. younger years when she was the one proudly stirring up trouble.
Amma explains that Yazz is helping her stay “woke” by Both Amma and Dominique struggle to contend with the fact that
confronting her outdated thinking. Amma tells Dominique she’s they aren’t the world’s young radicals anymore. There’s a clear
sure she has her own devoted following of “heroine” divide between their generation and the younger generations like
worshippers back in the States, but Dominique says the young Yazz’s. As much as Amma tries to keep her activism up to date
people see her as an old person who is part of the problem. through Yazz, their age will forever make them irrelevant and
Amma says that Dominique needs to talk to these young problematic in the eyes of younger activists. Rather than shut down
people and focus on celebrating this new evolution and and dismiss these new activists, Amma wants to celebrate the
reawakening of feminism. “How can we argue with that?” she evolution and progress that these young people are making. After
asks. all, older activists like she and Dominique are the ones who helped
pave the path that Yazz, Morgan, and other young activists are
blazing down now.
EPILOGUE
Two days away from her 80th birthday, Penelope is traveling The National, a symbol of England’s enduring white supremacist
first-class on the train and reading a review of a new play at the legacy, is unsurprisingly Penelope’s favorite theater because it caters
National, her favorite theater in London. It’s a play about to, and represents, the white middle and upper classes like her. In
African Amazons and despite its five-star review she definitely her mind, Amma’s play doesn’t fit her vision and version of the
won’t be seeing it. She’s surrounded by loud and rowdy National. Penelope’s classism is evident on the train when she is
passengers that she assumes upgraded their seats last minute bothered by the other passengers who she assumes are in first class
and wants to yell at them to shut up but fears they might attack on a fluke because they are rowdy, a characteristic that white
her. In her old age, she notices she has less tolerance for people supremacist society assigns to the lower classes. She fully believes in
other than her partner, Jeremy. She’s finally happily “co- and perpetuates harmful stereotypes when she assumes that they
dependent with a lovely man.” are violent and would want to attack an upper-class woman like
herself. Her fear highlights how fearmongering itself is a tactic for
preserving white supremacist ideologies. In her old age, Penelope’s
become less strict about her feminist beliefs. Whereas she was once
staunchly against being co-dependent with a man, now she enjoys
it.

At the suggestion of her doctor—a woman who retired and was Penelope’s racism seeps into all aspects of her life. When she meets
replaced “sadly” by a Nigerian man— Penelope takes Tai Chi Jeremy she changes herself in order to win him over, trading her
classes, and that’s where she met Jeremy. He is a divorcee, a feminist principles for the comfort and security of a home and
few years older than her, and she quickly won him over by relationship she’s been yearning for her whole life. Jeremy’s ex-wife
turning herself into a “Fun Person.” She does all the things she’d had a feminist awakening similar to Penelope’s. Both felt called to
usually find bothersome: she buys him gifts, they go on dates to action by the second wave feminist movement, but now in her old
operas and cricket matches, and she listens to him attentively. age that ideology is less important to her. Penelope is desperate to
Jeremy explains that his ex-wife transformed from a “well- be rid of her loneliness, even if it means being with a sexist man. It’s
behaved” wife and mother in the fifties to a “manhating easier for Penelope to overlook his sexism because they share
feminist” who hung out with unfeminine women. One day he otherwise conservative political views.
found her having sex with another woman in their house.
Penelope agrees that “feminism has a lot to answer for,” quick
to betray her feminist beliefs to be with Jeremy. In general,
Penelope and Jeremy agree on their right of center politics.
Penelope waited 18 months to be physically intimate with Penelope’s relationship with Jeremy is physically freeing. She’s
Jeremy. She was self-conscious of how her body looked when comfortable with herself and in her body despite its age. However,
she was naked now that she’s older. When they do finally have she continues to defer to Jeremy, even in matters of interior design,
sex, she realizes that Jeremy loves her body as it is. Penelope concessions she wouldn’t have made for any man years earlier. That
moves into his house and though she dislikes its interior design Penelope is willing to settle for a man who can’t bear to read a book
that’s unlike her own eclectic style, she doesn’t try to change by a woman highlights how thoroughly she’s abandoned her
anything about it. They both love to read, and when Jeremy feminist beliefs for the comfort and stability of this relationship.
reveals that he could never get past even the first chapter of a After years of failing to maintain a relationship with a man, she
book written by a woman, Penelope says nothing. Their life is believes abandoning her feminist principles and resigning herself to
comfortable, and she believes that the secret to their easy the role of an agreeable and obedient woman is the only way to stay
relationship is that she never stirs the pot. partnered at this point. In Penelope’s eyes at this point, the only way
for a woman to be happy in this life is to finally give in to what
society prescribes and enforces on women.
A cancer scare renews Penelope’s curiosity about her birth Penelope has created a new, longed-for home with Jeremy, but also
parents. At Sarah’s suggestion, Penelope orders an Ancestry realizes that the mystery of her birth parents is part of her yearning
DNA kit and when the results finally arrive she’s shocked. The and search for a home. Her DNA results upend everything she’s ever
science brings the reality of who she is crashing into who she known or understood about herself. With the realization that she is
expected she might be when it reveals that she’s 16 percent both Black and Jewish, Penelope suddenly belongs to the groups of
Jewish and that 13 percent of her DNA comes from Africa, people she’s spent her life hating. To come to terms with this new
with 4 percent coming from Ethiopia. She gets drunk, thinking identity, to accept herself, she’ll need to unpack years’ worth of
she could’ve handled being Jewish but being African on top of racist thinking. Her immediate reaction to this news is to conjure up
that was too much. She conjures up images of her ancestors grossly exaggerated stereotypes of her new identities.
“attired in loincloths running around the African savannah
spearing lions, at the same time wearing yarmulkes.” She
wonders if she should get a “dreadlock wig,” become a
Rastafarian, and start selling drugs to match her new identity.

Penelope Skypes Sarah to break the news. Sarah looks at the Morgan and Hattie complicate Penelope’s understanding of the
results and realizes that she has over a hundred genetic world. She’s now suddenly related to people whose identities she’s
relatives listed on the site including a parent. Penelope goes spent her life maligning. Penelope was separated from her mother,
pale and breaks into tears. Sarah emails a person named and by extension her identity, because Hattie’s father exerted
Morgan who replies that “he/she(?)” is managing the account patriarchal control over Hattie’s body. That decision impacted not
for their great-grandmother, Hattie Jackson. They’d been just one but two women’s lives. Hattie is thrilled her daughter is still
hoping to find out more about her mother, Grace, who they’d alive, without yet understanding that her daughter was socialized to
thought was half Ethiopian but discovered she had ancestry hate Black people and that this will dramatically impact their
spread across Africa. Morgan never expected to find someone relationship.
claiming to be Hattie’s daughter, because Hattie had only one
daughter, Ada Mae. When Morgan tells Hattie, she’s shocked,
but then explains that she’d given birth at 14 to a baby named
Barbara who her father forcibly took away. Hattie had kept her
daughter a secret her entire life but thought of her every single
day. She’s thrilled to find out she’s still alive.
Morgan emails Penelope to explain that her birth mother, Penelope struggles to unlearn a lifetime of racist thinking. She calls
Hattie, is still alive but old and in shock so she should come herself out for being surprised to see a Black person, the cab driver,
right away. Penelope gets off the train and into a cab driven by so far outside the city, but racist thinking permeates even her effort
an African man who she is surprised to see so far outside the to correct herself with her problematic aside that he may as well be
city. Two hours later they arrive in a deserted village and head a distant cousin simply because he’s Black. On the one hand,
up a hill to Greenfields. Penelope notices that the entire place Penelope judges what she finds at Greenfields. On the other hand,
looks wild and rundown. She gets out of the taxi, tipping the she recognizes herself in this place. Her mother is as fiercely feminist
driver since “he’s practically a sixth cousin or something.” Hattie as she has been for most of her life, and Greenfields is her feminist
steps out of the farmhouse. She’s barefoot with wiry grey hair legacy. Penelope tries to make sense of Hattie’s racial identity, which
that stands up on her head and raggedy blue overalls. She’s old is ambiguous like her own.
but still tall and strong with a fierceness that Penelope
recognizes in herself. Hattie is ambiguously brown but
inarguably brown. She could pass as being from any number of
countries.
Penelope realizes that “this metal-haired wild creature from On one hand, Penelope describes her mother through what could be
the bush with the piercingly feral eyes is her mother.” Suddenly read as a stereotypical and dehumanizing lens. She assigns
she no longer cares about her race and can’t understand why it animalistic traits to Hattie (“wild creature,” “feral”). At the same
once mattered to her so much. She’s overcome with the “pure time, she describes that something “pure and primal” is overtaking
and primal” connection between mother and daughter and her, suggesting that the meeting and her description of Hattie may
feels them both becoming whole again. Her fear that she’d feel also be rooted in a feeling that this meeting is bringing out the fierce
nothing is proven wrong as both are overwhelmed with bond and connection that mothers and their young share in nature.
emotion in this moment that is about nothing other than “being It’s unclear where Penelope’s racism begins and ends. Even though
together.” meeting her mother and feeling this immediate connection prompts
a major realization that she was wrong to have racist beliefs for all
these years, it is also certain that her meeting Hattie won’t
immediately eradicate the racist ideology that was passed down to
her and developed over a lifetime of living as a white person. In that
moment, however, their togetherness supersedes all else.

To cite any of the quotes from Girl, Woman, Other covered in the
HOW T
TO
O CITE Quotes section of this LitChart:
To cite this LitChart: MLA
MLA Evaristo, Bernardine. Girl, Woman, Other. Grove Press. 2019.
Parks, Rebecca. "Girl, Woman, Other." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 28 CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL
Nov 2022. Web. 28 Nov 2022.
Evaristo, Bernardine. Girl, Woman, Other. New York: Grove Press.
CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL 2019.
Parks, Rebecca. "Girl, Woman, Other." LitCharts LLC, November 28,
2022. Retrieved November 28, 2022. https://www.litcharts.com/
lit/girl-woman-other.

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Girl, Woman, Other

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Chapter 1: Amma Quotes

Page Number: 2 Related Themes:

Explanation and Analysis Page Number: 11

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she surprised herself at the strength of her grief

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Related Themes: Related Characters: Yazz, Courtney (speaker), Waris

Page Number: 60 Related Themes:

Explanation and Analysis Page Number: 66

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Yazz noticed that those ‘buns’ reciprocated Courtney’s

Related Themes: Related Themes:

Page Number: 68 Page Number: 79

Explanation and Analysis Explanation and Analysis

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Explanation and Analysis

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Page Number: 199-200 Related Themes:

when Shirley drove up to the school in the mornings

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Chapter 3: Winsome Quotes

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Page Number: 298-299

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Chapter 4: Hattie Quotes

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Related Themes: Page Number: 393-394

Explanation and Analysis

Chapter 4: Grace Quotes

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Chapter 5: The After-party Quotes

Related Characters: Carole Williams (speaker) is her mother

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SUMMARY AND ANAL

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