This book is presented with an introduction by Tayari Jones, who explains her first interaction with the book and how she regrets never getting to meet the author. She also suggests the book might give off the impression as being connected in some way to The Bluest Eye, but that in her estimation it owes more to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Thematically, all three books are similar, and are also similar to two of Tayari Jones’s novels: Silver Sparrow and The Untelling. The novel definitely reads a lot like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in its first person narration is that is more realism than impressionism (the way I generally perceive Toni Morrison narration).
The novel is narrated by Tangy Mae Quinn, a middle child among ten living with several of her siblings and their mother. The siblings generally have different fathers, and there’s a general hope among that some of their fathers might save them from their situation. The novel begins with the mother going into labor and thinking she might die, so she has Tangy write out a note to her employee that Tangy will be taking over the cleaning duties since she will be dead. It’s the Jim Crow South in the late 1950s, so the specter of Board of Education ruling haunts much of the book, offering up hope and danger in equal waves.
The novel is also heavily about the relationships in the family, especially in relation to the mother who is presented as dangerous and tyrannical, but also in the way of great characters as being the object of love, affection, but mainly attention. Parents are dangerous in bildungsroman because of the love they engender, whether they deserve it or not.