This book is a series of vignettes, punctuation optional,
each of which focuses on a single person.
Most of these persons are black women of varying ages, education levels,
economic situations, and sexual persuasions.
One character declares as non-binary, or gender-free. Their stories are interconnected in a variety
of ways—blood relatives, friends, co-workers.
Some stories stand out more than others.
Dominique, for example, follows her super-control-freak lover Nzinga to
the U.S. to live in a commune for women.
After three years of Dominique having lived essentially as Nzinga’s
caged pet, some of the other women in the commune stage an intervention to
allow Dominique to escape. In another story, Carole, an excellent student until
she is gang-raped at thirteen, finally enlists the help of a teacher, Shirley,
who has her own chapter in the book, to help extricate her from a state of
despair. Shirley later reaches a state
of despair herself, unrelated to the fact that her mother lusts after Shirley’s
husband. Ouch. LaTisha, who hosted the party during which
Carole was raped, is an unmarried mother of three, by three different fathers,
by the time she is 21. These stories all
have merit, and, even though I made some notes, I still had some difficulty
keeping track of the characters’ interrelationships. A diagram would be helpful, and I could
probably create one if I were inspired to read this book again, but I’m
not. The book has no cohesive plot, but
some of the individual stories have a sort of plot, and some characters’
stories are finished in another character’s chapter.
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