Memphis

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of domestic abuse, racism, racist violence, and child sexual abuse.

Joan is the main character of the story, the only one who narrates in the first person. Because the novel is a family saga, it does not have a protagonist-antagonist dynamic but instead relies on societal and family conflict for tension and release. Joan’s conflicts are with her inner trauma, her choices versus her mother’s wishes, the violence around her, and the violence that pervades her family. Joan is a young Black woman with a vivid and artistic imagination. Joan describes her appearance, emphasizing her Blackness, which contrasts her mother and sister: “I had always been the dark one. Mya was an exact clone of Mama. […] Their hair obeyed under flat iron or pressing comb or hair dryer. Mine did not. My hair was a thick forest of unruly curls” (74). While her mother and sister are “petite,” Joan’s body is “long.” Joan’s appearance resembles her aunt’s and her father’s. Due to her darker skin tone, she experiences more racial discrimination. She mentions that society always treated her differently and she sensed people’s “outright stares,” “their prolonged looks,” and “the disgust” (74).