We Deserve Monuments

We Deserve Monuments (2022) is the debut novel of American author Jas Hammonds. This contemporary YA novel deals with issues of identity, family history, and race and racism in the American South. We Deserve Monuments was a critical success, earning a place on multiple “Best Book of the Year” lists and winning the 2023 Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe Award for New Talent. Hammonds’s second novel, Thirsty, was released in 2024.

This guide references the 2022 Roaring Brook e-book edition.

Content Warning: This guide references racism, colorism, anti-gay bias, anti-fat bias, emotional abuse, and terminal illness.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with Avery Anderson and her family relocating from Washington DC to her mother’s hometown in Bardell County, Georgia. Avery is dreading spending her senior year in rural Bardell and is uneasy with the idea of tending to her long-estranged grandmother, Mama Letty, during Letty’s terminal illness. She doesn’t have context for the longstanding tension between her mother, Zora, and Letty. She further struggles to get close to prickly Letty, and Avery fears Letty will treat her poorly due to her anti-gay bias. Avery develops a crush on her neighbor, Simone, and notes the tension between Zora and Simone’s mother, Carole.

After she begins attending school, Avery grows closer to Simone, who is Black like Avery. She also befriends Jade, who is white and descended from a prominent, wealthy Bardell family. Avery increasingly feels grateful to be away from DC and her friends there, who made racist comments to her before her departure. She gradually gets to know Letty, who tells her about Avery’s grandfather, Ray. During a night out, Simone confesses to Avery that she is a lesbian but fears coming out, as her mother and Bardell at large will not approve. Avery also sees Carole and Zora sitting together, looking fond, leaving her with questions about her family’s history.

Letty tells Avery that Ray was murdered by three white police officers while Letty was pregnant with Zora. When approached, Zora admits to hiding this truth from Avery due to the pain it causes the whole family. Simone, meanwhile, avoids Avery, refusing to discuss the confession about her sexuality. Jade helps Avery arrange a free spa day for Letty at her family’s establishment, the Draper. The day abruptly ends when Letty, Zora, and Avery encounter Tallulah, Jade’s stepmother.

Avery initially thinks that this discomfort is due to the rumors that Jade’s father had Jade’s mother, Amelia, murdered because he was having an affair with Tallulah. Tallulah, however, reports that she once got Letty fired from her job for refusing to let a pregnant Tallulah take a free soda; Tallulah tells this story with the conviction that she was justified in her actions. Her casual invocation of this, as well as other racist comments, leads Avery to invoke the rumors that Tallulah conspired with Jade’s father to have Amelia killed. This criticism of her stepmother delights Jade.

Simone and Avery reconcile and become romantically involved, though Simone insists on keeping their relationship a secret, even from Jade, until she is ready to reveal it. Letty clarifies that the men who killed Ray were Oliver men—Jade’s family. Avery is shaken by the idea that she has met her grandfather’s killers. Zora takes Avery to a restaurant called The Renaissance, which is owned by a gay Black man named Mr. Arnie, whom Zora cites as a father figure. There, Zora explains that she and Carole were in love as teenagers, even if they did not have the social context to understand their love as two Black girls in a remote town in the 1980s. Zora and Avery grow closer after sharing this information.

Jade, Simone, and Avery attend the Bardell County Fair on Halloween, where they encounter Lucas Oliver, Jade’s father, dressed in a sheriff’s uniform, which horrifies Avery. Jade’s little brothers catch Simone and Avery kissing in the corn maze. Jade is upset that her friends have been keeping their relationship a secret. Avery accuses Jade of knowing that her grandfather killed Ray, and Jade storms off, leaving Simone and Avery to walk home. Simone dreads Carole learning about her sexuality and persuades Avery to go out with her the next night despite Avery’s curfew. They go to the Renaissance, where they have an amazing night and dance until the wee hours of the morning. Avery tells Simone about Carole and Zora’s past romance.

When they return home, they find Avery’s parents and Carole furious. Carole uses anti-gay rhetoric against Avery and Simone, leading Zora to defend both girls. When Letty argues that she let them borrow her car to go out, Zora criticizes Letty’s neglectful and abusive parenting when Zora was young. Simone and Avery end up grounded. When Avery tries to speak to Simone at school, Simone rebuffs her. She, Jade, and Avery do not speak to one another for weeks.

To celebrate what the family knows will be Letty’s last Thanksgiving, the family goes to Kisabee Island, the setting of the only photo Zora has of Letty and Ray. They have a happy trip, albeit one tinged with sadness. They take a family photo together and then Zora, Avery, and Letty go down to the beach. There, Avery builds a sandcastle, which she dedicates to Ray. The three women discuss their pain: Zora talks about the struggles of having a parent who neglected and emotionally abused her; Letty talks about her grief over losing Ray; Avery discusses the pain of knowing she has met the man who killed her grandfather and how sad it makes her to have lost her friendships with Simone and Jade. The women express their love for one another, embrace, and dance together on the sand, and a passerby initially mistakes them for mermaids.

Two days later, Letty becomes disoriented, and the family takes her to the hospital. They return to Bardell, where the Andersons clean Letty’s room in preparation for her anticipated return home. However, they receive news from the hospital that Letty’s death is imminent. They rush to the hospital with Simone and Carole close behind them. The Andersons, Carole, and Simone spend Letty’s last hours with her, talking to her and expressing their love.

A week later, Avery prepares for Letty’s funeral. Her father delivers a box of Letty’s journals, which Letty made him promise to keep until after she died. There is a letter for her and one for Zora; she invites her daughter and granddaughter to read the journals she has kept over many years. Avery finds another box full of newspaper clippings about the Olivers. The last clipping is from the day Amelia died. Beneath the papers is a gun, which makes Avery realize that Letty likely killed Amelia—something the third-person narration later confirms—as revenge for the Olivers killing Ray.

At Letty’s funeral, Simone reports that Carole has relented in her anti-gay rhetoric and is working to accept her daughter. Jade arrives and reports that she “did a lot of research” and has proposed that the Bardell Historical Society put up a monument for Ray and Letty (258). The three girls apologize to one another. That night, they drop Jade briefly off at the winter formal (which Simone and Letty do not plan to attend, given its racist theme “The Cotton Ball,” organized by Tallulah). While they wait for Jade to reemerge, they kiss in the parking lot, leading Avery to imagine how they would look as monuments. No statue of Letty and Ray is ever erected. Simone follows her dream of attending Spelman College, Jade moves to New York for college, and Avery eventually works in national forests.