The story, framed by the 1949 funeral of 16-year-old Thad Butler, unfolds in the grief-stricken voice of his mother, Margaret, as she revisits the events that shaped her life—and ultimately, her son’s tragic fate. Told in a rich Southern vernacular, the novel stretches back to 1915, when Margaret was a 10-year-old girl growing up in New Harmony, South Carolina. As the daughter of Black sharecroppers, Margaret came of age amid stark racial hierarchies, grinding poverty, and gendered expectations. A pivotal moment arrived when she was invited to live in the “Big House” of the white Demmings family—a gesture of apparent kindness that concealed deeper power dynamics and exploitation. Through Margaret’s eyes, readers witness the tension between survival and dignity, love and injustice. Her friendship with White Candy, the plantation owner’s daughter, adds complexity to the novel’s portrayal of race and intimacy. As Margaret’s story winds through her adolescence, marriage, and motherhood, she tries to shield her children from the pain she carries from her past. However, when her child is murdered in an act of racist terror, she’s forced to confront the forces that shaped them all. Over the course of this novel, Pettiway’s richly voiced prose is lyrical and immersive, grounded in emotional precision and a tone of oral tradition. The narrative structure, which effectively interweaves past and present events, emphasizes the enduring weight of memory and trauma; as Margaret notes early on: “The threads of our lives—the decisions, dreams, and hopes that wove in and out, over and under each other—crafted my boy’s demise.” Overall, this is a story not just of loss, but of truth-telling, resistance, and the burden of inherited injustice.