Front cover of a first edition of Girl, Woman, Other.
Girl, Woman, Other (ISBN 9780241364901) is an acclaimed and award-winning novel by the British author Bernardine Evaristo that deals with themes of race, gender, sexuality and economic and social class. It was first published in 2019.
The novel focusses on the lives of twelve British characters, one of whom has lived for many years in the United States and another of whom has retired back to Barbados, the country of her birth. They range in age from 19 to 93. Eleven of them identify as women. One of them, who was assigned female gender at birth and brought up as a girl, identifies as non-binary and presents as more masculine than feminine. All of the twelve main characters are of African or Afro-Caribbean descent, although one of them, who looks white and was adopted by a white couple who knew nothing about her birth parents, is unaware of her Ethiopian great-grandfather for most of her life. The lives of all of the main characters are interconnected. Some of the characters have a family relationship (mother and daughter, grandmother and grandchild), some of them are very close friends, others are simply casual acquaintances. Many of the characters attend the first performance of a play about African lesbian warriors, called The Last Amazon of Dahomey, at London's National Theatre. The first chapter of the novel focusses on the play's writer and her long struggle to get one of her works performed at such a prestigious venue. The final chapter takes place at a party to celebrate the play's successful premiere. The epilogue concerns how a somewhat bigoted retired teacher who, in spite of not knowing who she really was by birth, had always thought of herself as white British, starts to come to terms with her African ancestry and begins to connect with her birth family.
Girl, Woman, Other includes references to substance abuse, racially motivated violence, sexual assault and abusive relationships.
Summary[]
- Amma
Amma Bonsu's play The Last Amazon of Dahomey, based on historical accounts of lesbian warriors in the African nation Benin (formerly known as Dahomey), is due to premiere at London's National Theatre in the evening. She recalls how she and her good friend Dominique used to frequently protest plays they found objectionable, such as one that featured half naked black women running about the stage like idiots. Amma and Dominique met as two black actresses in the 1980s who only got to audition for roles as prisoners, slaves, servants or prostitutes. Both Amma and Dominique are lesbians, although they have never been lovers. Amma got her political conscious from her Ghanaian socialist father, although she was never able to come out to him. Amma's mixed race Scottish mother told her to forgive her father's homophobia as a product of the time and culture into which he was born.
Amma and Dominique founded the Bush Woman Theatre Company to put on the kind of plays in which they would be happy to perform. Realizing that she was not a very good actress, Amma chose to concentrate on playwriting instead. She has written some forty plays, although having one of them performed at the National Theatre for the first time represents a new level of social acceptance for Amma and her political message. Amma's works have not achieved mainstream success so far because they are not the kind of black plays that white audiences are interested in seeing. Amma tries not to think of herself as an imposter now that she is finally being accepted as a legitimate playwright.
Dominique is not expected to be in the audience for Amma's play because she now lives in the United States. Amma's oldest friend, a teacher named Shirley King, is expected to attend, however. Shirley and Amma first became friends because they were the only two black girls in their school. Shirley often babysat for Amma's daughter Yazz.
Yazz was conceived by artificial insemination. Her father, who shared parenting duties with Amma, is a black gay man named Roland. Yazz is now a university student. She finds her 50 year-old mother's clinging to being a feminist, a lesbian and a woman as political identities to be somewhat old fashioned. A non-binary person named Morgan recently gave a speech at Yazz's university that made a big impact on her. Yazz tells her mother that in the future, people will cease to identify as men or women.
- Yazz
Yazz genuinely loves her father, Roland Quartey, although she also finds him arrogant. He is a university professor and quite famous because of his frequent appearances on television as a cultural commentator. He has recently been appointed Professor of Modern Life. Yazz does not see how it is possible for somebody to be Professor of Modern Life without being an expert on everything, which she knows her father is not.
Yazz is determined to get a good degree and afterwards help change the world for the better. She wants to be a journalist. Yazz had hoped to find a boyfriend at university but has not had much luck and has temporarily stopped looking. She is almost inseparable from her three best friends at university, Waris, Nenet and Courtney. Waris is the daughter of Somali immigrants. She is a Muslim and chooses to always wear a hijab. Nenet is Egyptian and turns out to be from an extremely wealthy family. Courtney is white British and grew up on a farm. All four young women are attending the premiere of Amma's play.
Yazz hopes that the play will be a success. If it is not, she will feel deeply embarrassed on behalf of her mother and will have to endure her mother's complaints that mainstream critics do not understand the lives of black women.
- Dominnique
Dominique's parents come from Guyana. Her mother is of African descent and her father is of Indian descent.
One day at London's Victoria Station, Dominique sees another black woman spill the contents of her bag. Dominique helps the woman. Suspecting that the woman is a lesbian like herself, Dominique invites her to coffee. The woman, whose name is Nzinga, accepts the invitation but rejects coffee as harmful to her body. She drinks hot water with lemon instead.
Nzinga was born in England but moved to the United States with her mother and brother when she was very young. Nzinga's mother and her American stepfather both became drug addicts. After Nzinga's stepfather raped her, she and her brother were put into foster care. Nzinga's brother never spoke to her again after finding out she was a lesbian. Nzinga has lived on several women's communes where she has helped to build houses.
Dominique and Nzinga soon become lovers. Amma invites Nzinga to dinner. She accepts on the condition that all the food served is organic, a condition that Amma secretly disobeys. Everybody else at the dinner party is in awe of Nzinga. Amma, however, finds Nzinga's talk of never wearing black socks or black underwear and never using black garbage bags so as to avoid making symbolic acts of oppression towards her people ridiculous. The two women soon take a strong dislike to each other.
Dominique follows Nzinga back to the United States. They live and work at a women's commune in rural Alabama. Nzinga insists on Dominique becoming a strict vegan. She also tries to get her to change her name to Sojourner, something that Dominique refuses to do. Nzinga tries to prevent Dominique from having any contact with any of the men who live in the nearby town. She also forbids her from reading any books written by men. Nzinga does not like Dominique having any contact with any of the other women who live at the commune either. She becomes jealous if Dominique speaks to any of them for more than a few minutes. Eventually, Nzinga becomes physically abusive.
The owner of the commune, a woman known as Gaia, helps Dominique to escape. She lives with friends of Gaia in West Hollywood for a few years until she can afford her own home. She settles in Los Angeles and founds a Women's Arts Festival. She is both relieved and saddened when she finds out Nzinga has died. Dominique has lived in the United States for thirty years and considers it home.
- Carole
Carole Williams is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Following the death of her father, she is brought up by her single mother Bummi. Bummi is very good at mathematics. She inspires Carole to take an interest in it and other school subjects. Although she is not usually interested in parties or boys, the 13 year-old Carole is persuaded to attend a party at the home of her friend LaTisha. Carole gets drunk at the party. An older boy named Trey offers to walk her home. He and several of his friends rape her while she is barely conscious. Carole never tells anyone about the rape. Following it, however, she loses interest in life and learning. Her teachers give up on her. She appears to be heading down the path of teenage pregnancy, single motherhood, dead-end jobs and lifelong poverty.
A year after the rape, Carole decides to turn her life around. She asks one of her teachers, Shirley King, for advice. To her surprise, Mrs. King says she will tutor Carole if the girl stops playing truant from school and changes her circle of friends. For the next four years, Mrs. King is especially strict in her treatment of Carole, telling her off for such minor things as laughing too loudly and walking too quickly. Carole is accepted into Oxford University. At an end of year school assembly, Carole is upset when Mrs. King takes all the credit for her academic achievement.
In an environment dominated by the wealthiest and most privileged students, where there are very few other students of color and she is the darkest of them, Carole is initially unhappy at Oxford. She tells her mother that she does not want to go back there. Bummi insists on her daughter returning to Oxford and claiming her British birthright to the opportunity for advancement as a true Nigerian should. Bummi says that Carole will need to find her people at Oxford, even if those people are white. Nevertheless, Bummi still wants Carole to marry a Nigerian. Carole returns to Oxford University. She finds a boyfriend, a white Kenyan named Marcus. She befriends white students from privileged backgrounds and visits their homes.
On graduation, Carole begins working for a bank. She is soon promoted to associate and is now vice-president. She is married to a white man named Freddy. Freddy has bought tickets for both of them for the opening night of the play The Last Amazon of Dahomey at the National Theatre that evening. Carole wonders what has happened to her old friend LaTisha whom she has not seen for many years. She thinks that LaTisha is probably now a single mother, in a gang or in prison or possibly all three of those things.
- Bummi
Bummi is born in Nigeria. Her father Moses dies by accident while illegally refining diesel. After Moses' death, his family take over his farm. They claim that Bummi's mother, Iyatunde, was never Moses' legal wife and is not allowed to stay there. Iyatunde goes back to live with her parents and takes Bummi with her. Bummi's grandfather wants her to marry as soon as she reaches puberty. Not wanting that fate for her daughter, Iyatunde takes her to the capital city Lagos. They share a bamboo hut with another family. Iyatunde finds work at a sawmill. She dies in an accident at the mill when Bummi is 15.
Bummi is taken in by a distant relative whom she knows as Aunty Ekio. Aunty Ekio is relatively wealthy. Her home is the first house made of concrete in which Bummi has ever lived. Bummi is forced to do all the housework for Aunty Ekio, even changing the TV channel for her. Bummi begins studying mathematics at university but frequently dozes off in class because of how hard Aunty Ekio makes her work. It is thus that she first meets Augustine Williams, a teaching assistant at the university who wakes her up one day. Augustine and Bummi soon fall in love. His wealthy family do not object to Bummi becoming his wife, even though she does not have a family who can provide her with a dowry.
Even though he has a PhD in economics, Augustine is unable to find work in Nigeria. He and Bummi emigrate to Britain. Augustine is unable to find the kind of work that he really wants there either. He becomes a taxi driver. Bummi finds out that a degree in mathematics from a Nigerian university is worthless in England. Her nationality and name also prevent her from getting jobs. That is why her daughter Carole does not even have a Nigerian middle name. Bummi finds work as a cleaner. It saddens her that people think of her as a cleaner instead of an educated woman. Augustine is unable to save much money. The worsening Nigerian economy means that he has to send a lot of money home to his formerly wealthy family. Augustine works himself to death. He dies after having a heart attack in his taxi on New Year's Day.
Bummi decides to open her own cleaning agency. She has to ask Bishop Aderami Obi of her church for money to start the business. He will only give it to her if she has sex with him. She does so one time, considers it her first transaction as a businesswoman and never tells anyone else about it. Bummi founds BW Cleaning Services International. Her first client is a retired white woman named Penelope Halifax who used to be a teacher at Carole's school. Bummi employs several cleaners, most of whom are immigrants from Africa or Eastern Europe. She becomes very friendly with one of her cleaners, a Nigerian woman named Omofe who also attends Bummi's church. The friendship develops into a sexual and romantic relationship. The two women always meet at Omofe's house. Bummi puts an end to their relationship when Omofe's sons return from Nigeria. She does not feel comfortable bringing her female lover back to the home she used to share with Augustine. Omofe stops working for Bummi and begins a relationship with another woman from her church. Bummi wonders if her secret relationship with Omofe was as obvious to other people as Omofe's relationship with her new lover is to her.
Bummi becomes friendly with another one of her cleaners, an old Ghanaian man named Kofi. With Carole's approval, Bummi begins dating Kofi. Kofi's tolerant attitude also helps Bummi to accept Carole's white future husband Freddy. Bummi and Kofi marry. Bummi wishes her mother could see how happy she is, although she also misses Omofe.
- LaTisha
LaTisha KaNisha Jones is born in London. She has an older sister named Jayla. Her mother Pauline is a social worker who emigrated from St. Lucia to Liverpool at the age of 2. Her father Glenmore emigrated from Montserrat at the age of 13.
Glenmore's teachers in England thought he had behavioral problems because he complained of feeling cold. They also thought he was of low intelligence because he spoke in Patois. He would always be the one punished by teachers, even though white boys took part in the same disruptive behavior. He got labeled as aggressive and lived up to that label. After throwing a chair at a teacher, he was sent to a young offenders' center. Glenmore determined not to end up like the other boys there. He channeled all of his aggression into bodybuilding. He works as a pest exterminator and a bouncer at a nightclub. He loves both jobs. He claims to often be offered private security jobs by famous soccer players who frequent the nightclub. He says he turns them down because they would take him away from the family he loves. LaTisha is obviously his favorite daughter.
Glenmore suddenly disappears one day, simply leaving a note that says he is sorry. Pauline eventually finds out that he has gone to New Jersey with a friend of hers and the daughter he has with her. Pauline removes from her house or destroys everything that reminds her of Glenmore. Jayla and LaTisha are forbidden from ever talking about him.
Pauline reveals to her two daughters that Glenmore is not Jayla's biological father. Her real father is a violent ex-boyfriend of Pauline. Pauline met Glenmore towards the end of her pregnancy. He promised to love the child as his own. Although Pauline warns her daughter not to have anything to do with her real father, Jayla goes to Liverpool to meet him. His mother tells Jayla he does not want to see her, that he has too many children already and that she is better off without him.
When people ask LaTisha about her father, she says that he died of a heart attack. She begins misbehaving. Even though her mother is a social worker, she cannot control her. At the age of 13, LaTisha holds a big party while her mother is away. Pauline returns earlier than expected and finds the house in a complete mess. For the first time in her life, she beats LaTisha. After that, LaTisha always behaves at home but continues to run wild at school. She is usually joined in her misbehavior by her friend Carole, until Carole suddenly turns studious and blanks her.
After leaving school, LaTisha begins working at a supermarket. She begins a relationship with a security guard who works there named Dwight who gets her pregnant. The only support that Dwight gives LaTisha is allowing her to steal everything she needs for the baby from the supermarket. After her son Jason is born, Pauline throws LaTisha out, telling her that she does not want to come home to the same kind of girl she works with all day. She gives her the phone number of a hostel for young mothers. Pauline soon takes her daughter back, however. Jayla watches Jason all day, allowing LaTisha to continue working at the supermarket.
LaTisha meets a man named Mark. After she becomes pregnant with her daughter Jantelle, LaTisha finds out that Mark gave her a fake phone number.
LaTisha reconnects with her old friend Trey, whom she always suspected her old friend Carole had sex with following her party. Trey ends up having sex with LaTisha in a way that she is not sure was consensual on her part. She gives birth to her second son Jordan. She is a single mother of three children before she is 21 years-old.
LaTisha works hard at the supermarket. By the time she is 30, she is a supervisor and is studying part-time for a degree in retail management. She has found out through the internet that Carole is now vice-president of a bank. She would like to show Carole that she is no longer the juvenile delinquent she once was and hopes they can be friends again. LaTisha still lives with her mother and Jayla. The three women share parenting duties for LaTisha's three children. LaTisha is surprised to come home one day and find her son Jordan snuggled up to her father Glenmore. Reasoning that her children need a father figure, LaTisha is happy to have Glenmore back in her life.
- Shirley
Shirley Coleman's parents came to England from Barbados. She is about to be married to Lennox King, a lawyer whose family came from Guyana. Lennox spent some of his formative years with his aunt in Harlem. He has no trouble accepting the fact that Shirley's oldest friend Amma is a lesbian, something that Shirley continues to struggle with years after Amma came out to her. He sometimes joins in with Amma and her gay friends in gently mocking Shirley. Lennox suspects that his aunt was gay because she lived for many years with a "special friend" and he once found an old photograph of the two of them dressed in men's clothes.
It is the early 1980s and Shirley, who has recently graduated from university, has been accepted for the first job for which she applied, that of history teacher at Peckham School for Boys and Girls. Shirley is young, idealistic and determined to make a difference. She is popular with her students and respected by them. Tensions sometimes occur within Shirley's multicultural classroom. After students make racist comments and wear badges in support of far-right parties, Shirley teaches them about the Holocaust and lynchings in the American Deep South. She shows them graphic images. Those lessons make the desired impact on the students.
The other teachers at Shirley's school are mostly older white men. They openly display soft porn images in the staff room and see little point in trying to educate their working class students. It is those men who always dominate staff meetings. Only one female teacher, Penelope Halifax, ever manages to make herself heard at the meetings. Her opinions regarding the students are not very different from those of her male colleagues. When she speaks about the "half of the students" who cause all of the trouble, it is obvious she means the black students. Fed up with all of the decisions being made by Penelope and the men, Shirley speaks up. She says that they have to try to make a difference in their students' lives because nobody else will. Penelope replies that she is not a social worker and that she, as someone with fifteen years of teaching experience, is not going to be bossed around by someone who has been teaching for less than a year.
A national curriculum is introduced in the United Kingdom, placing restraints on what Shirley King can teach and making her feel like a cog in a bureaucratic machine. She gains a reputation for being strict, becomes very unpopular with her students and is nicknamed F*** Face. Shirley begins to despair of making a difference in the lives of students whose parents are poor, unemployed, addicted to drugs or in prison. By the turn of the 21st century, drugs, gang violence and sexual assault have become serious problems within the school itself. Shirley and Lennox send their own daughters, Karen and Rachel, to a private school. Karen becomes a pharmacist and Rachel becomes a computer scientist. Shirley has not only given up on her students, she has begun to hate them. Idealistic new teachers regard Shirley with the same contempt with which she once regarded Penelope. Shirley and Penelope become friends. They enjoy seeing idealistic new teachers fail and get disillusioned. When Penelope retires, Shirley feels abandoned.
One lunchtime, Shirley is approached by Carole Williams, a formerly strong student who has gone off the rails. Carole asks for advice on turning her life around. Shirley tutors her and holds her to strict academic and behavioral standards. Carole is accepted into Oxford University. Shirley regains some of her belief in the power of education to change people's lives for the better. She decides to select one promising but disadvantaged child each year to mentor. Most of them go on to achieve some level of success of which Shirley can be proud. She realizes that becoming a plumber can be almost as great an achievement as going to university and will probably lead to a higher income. Although many of the former students that Shirley mentored keep in touch with her and come back to thank her, Carole Williams, Shirley's first and greatest success, has never thanked her and has not once contacted her since leaving school. Shirley cannot help feeling resentful and used when she thinks of that.
- Winsome
Shirley King's future mother Winsome meets Clovis, the man who will become her husband, shortly after arriving in London from Barbados. Clovis has already been in England for two years. Winsome likes him because he is honest and dependable, although she does not find him handsome or exciting. After they are married, Clovis insists on moving to the south coast of England. He had been a fisherman in Barbados and wants to be a fisherman again. He also thinks the climate might be warmer further south in the country. Winsome and Clovis travel south mainly by foot. They are stared at by locals in rural areas who have never seen black people before and are denied entry to hotels. Clovis eventually finds work as a longshoreman in the seaside town of Plymouth. Winsome gives birth to Shirley and her two brothers. The family face constant open racism. It is a long time before anyone accepts them. Winsome eventually tells Clovis she is taking her children to London with or without him. They return to London and settle into a routine.
When Shirley introduces her future husband Lennox to her mother, Winsome immediately finds him attractive. She considers Lennox to not only be better looking than Clovis, but also more intelligent and more sociable. She gets a thrill out of any physical contact they have. She fantasizes that she would not be able to resist if Lennox tried to have his way with her. One day, after Lennox and Shirley are married and their two daughters, Rachel and Karen, are born and while Clovis is out, Winsome's fantasies come true. Their affair continues for a year. They even regularly go away for weekends at the seaside together, taking Rachel and Karen with them under the guise of giving Shirley a break. Lennox suddenly ends the affair. He does not give Winsome a reason and she does not dare ask for one. Shirley notices that her husband and her mother are not as close as they used to be. Winsome denies this.
After many years of working hard and saving money, Winsome and Clovis retire back to Barbados. Winnie joins a book club, all of the members of which are women who have returned to Barbados after living for many years in the United Kingdom, the United States or Canada. The books they read are all written by female Afro-Caribbean writers. They only read novels after one member of the book club complains that books of poetry are a rip off because they cost almost as much as novels in spite of having fewer words in them.
Winsome's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren come to visit her in Barbados in the summer. Shirley tells her mother about all the problems she has in the teaching job that she hates. Lennox helps Clovis to repair his fishing boat. Winsome still finds Lennox attractive. She now thinks it is because he resembles Clovis. Shirley proudly tells her mother that Lennox would never cheat on her. Winsome agrees and tells her daughter she is lucky to have him.
- Penelope
Penelope is a white British woman. On her fourteenth birthday, she finds out that she was adopted. As a baby, she was left on the doorstep of a church without a note or any documents indicating who she was by birth. Even her true date of birth is unknown. After this revelation, Penelope ceases to feel close to her adoptive parents and no longer thinks of them as her mother and father, thinking of them as Margaret and Edwin instead. The ideas held on race by her adoptive mother, who was raised in South Africa, do, however make an almost lifelong impact on Penelope.
To make a new and better life for herself, Penelope determines to marry the popular Giles. They get engaged when Penelope is 18 and get married after she gets her teaching degree. Penelope does not start work as a teacher due to the birth of her son Adan and the birth of her daughter Sarah soon afterwards. After three years, Penelope declares that she wants to go out to work. Giles refuses to allow that. He says that a woman should not have two masters, a husband and a boss at work. Spurred on by her discovery of the burgeoning feminist movement, Penelope keeps telling Giles she wants to go out to work. He gets so angry that he punches through the window of their front door and tells Penelope she was lucky it was not her face. They divorce and Penelope begins teaching at Peckham School for Boys and Girls.
Soon after her divorce from Giles is finalized, Penelope meets a psychologist named Phillip, the man who will be her second husband. Adam and Sarah like Phillip because he is more affectionate and playful than Giles. After they are married, Phillip moves into the house Penelope used to share with Giles and sets up his psychologist's office there. Penelope is happy that she now goes out to work while her husband stays at home. The marriage does not remain a happy one for very long, however. Phillip is highly critical of Penelope and thinks she drinks too much. By the time Penelope's children leave home, she and Phillip are leading almost completely separate lives. The marriage finally comes to end when Penelope finds out Phillip is having an affair with one of his 19 year-old patients. They divorce and Penelope gets to keep the house.
Giles now lives in Hong Kong, is married to an Indian woman and has two sons with her. Adam and Sarah love their half Indian half-brothers. They call their mother racist for not being able to accept them. Even though Penelope raised them, Giles becomes Adam and Sarah's favorite parent because, unlike Penelope, he is able to give them financial assistance.
As the students at Peckham School for Boys and Girls change from being predominantly white working class to being more multicultural, Penelope feels increasingly unhappy there. Although she fears that feminism is going out of style, Penelope challenges the male teachers at staff meetings for the first time in her life. She is very upset when the new black teacher Shirley challenges her at a staff meeting instead of the "male chauvinist pigs". Before Penelope retires, however, she forgives Shirley and they become friends.
The house now seems too large for Penelope. She hires the African cleaner Bummi to come in once a week. She rents the top floor of the house out to Japanese students. Penelope feels lonely. She briefly wishes she was a lesbian after she reads that they often prefer older women.
Penelope's son Adam has moved to Texas for work. Her daughter Sarah marries an Australian living in London and has two children. Penelope dislikes visiting Sarah's apartment because she finds it dirty and thinks the children are badly behaved. Penelope is, however, devastated when Sarah tells her that she and her family are moving to Australia. She goes into another room to cry. Sarah sends in her children to cheer up their grandmother. As they jump all over her, Penelope thinks about how much she will miss seeing her grandchildren grow up.
- Megan/Morgan
Megan is from the north-east of England. Her father Chimongo is a black African from Malawi. Her mother Julie is of white British, Ethiopian and African-American descent. As a girl, Megan's parents force her to wear cute dresses and play with Barbie dolls. Megan hates doing those things. She prefers to dress and act like her brother Mark. (The same Mark who will later father LaTisha's second child.) The only person who allows Megan to be herself is her great-grandmother Hattie, at whose farm Megan spends the summer.
Megan's discomfort increases when she reaches puberty. She hates the way her body is changing. At the age of 16, Megan shaves off her hair. She leaves school and gets a job at McDonald's. She gravitates towards other outsiders and takes a lot of drugs. She sometimes has sex with men in exchange for drugs, although she prefers having sex with women. Megan eventually quits the drugs cold turkey and feels born again. On her eighteenth birthday, Megan gets a tattoo on her arm. Her parents almost throw her out when they see it, although they reconcile soon afterwards.
To start her own life away from the influence of her parents, Megan moves into a hostel. She does not feel like a woman. Through internet chat rooms, Megan discovers the trans community. She often chats with Bibi, a trans woman from a Hindu family. Bibi educates Morgan about modern feminism and gender. Megan is still unsure about her gender identity. She jokes about some of the many different gender identities that she finds out about online, which she thinks are crazy. This angers Bib, although she eventually forgives Megan.
Bibi and Megan meet in person and get on very well. Megan says that she does not want to be a woman or a man and instead wants to be non-binary. After experimenting with different gender neutral pronouns, Megan settles on they/them. Bibi says that people will continue to use the wrong pronouns and Megan should be understanding of them.
It is now six years later. Morgan (as Megan now prefers to be called) is in a happy and loving relationship with Bibi. The two of them often visit the farm where Morgan's 93 year-old grandmother Hattie still lives and works. Hattie tells Morgan that she is leaving them the farm in her will. She wants it to stay in her family and she knows that any of her other family members would just sell it. Hattie mentions regretting knowing nothing about Wolde, her Ethiopian grandfather. Morgan buys Hattie an Ancestry DNA test so that she can find out more about her roots.
Due to the massive following they have gained on Twitter, Morgan is considered an influencer. As such, she is invited to the opening night of the play The Last Amazon of Dahomey by Amma Bonsu at London's National Theatre to write a review of it for a magazine. Although Morgan loved the play, they want to get away from the after-party, get out of London and get back to Bibi as quickly as possible. Next to Roland Quartey, who Morgan recognizes from his many TV appearances, Morgan sees Yazz, a girl that they met last year when they were invited to give a talk at a university. After the talk, Morgan had coffee with Yazz and her friends Waris, Nenet and Courtney. At that time, Morgan dismissed Yazz's sudden declaration that she might be non-binary by telling her that it is something inside you that you feel for a long time and not something you should pretend to be because it is fashionable. When Yazz sees Morgan at the play's after-party, she rushes over to them and tells them she is the playwright's daughter. Morgan says they want to leave but Yazz tells them to stay because Waris and Courtney are there.
- Hattie
Hattie is born in the north-east of England in the 1920s. Her father, Joseph Ryendale, owns a farm that has been in his family since it was founded by his ancestor Captain Linnaeus Ryendale in 1806. Her mother, Grace, is the daughter of a white English mother and an Ethiopian father.
In 1945, Hattie attends a dance given in honor of black American soldiers who are about to return home. Her parents want her to attend the dance in the hope that she will meet a suitable husband there. There are many other mixed race young women at the dance from all over England, Scotland and Wales whose parents have similar hopes. At the dance, Hattie meets Slim Jackson. They marry in less than a year. Hattie's parents like Slim because he takes good care of her and is hardworking. Slim chooses to stay in England, where nobody calls him "boy" and he does not have to worry about the Ku Klux Klan. His polite demeanor endear him to the other locals. Slim had been a sharecropper in the United States. He much prefers working on Hattie's parents farm because he knows it will belong to him one day.
Slim admires the portrait of Eudoré, Captain Linnaeus Ryendale's supposedly Spanish wife from Jamaica, saying he thinks she was really black. After Joseph dies, Slim is furious to find out that Captain Linnaeus Ryendale made his fortune from the slave trade. Hattie tells him that she did not know and that neither she nor her father were responsible for their ancestor's actions.
Hattie and Slim have a daughter named Ada Mae, named after Slim's mother, and a son named Sonny, named after Slim's brother who was lynched. When the children complain about racist bullying they face at school, Slim tells them their troubles are as nothing compared to those that he faced as a child and that black people continue to face in the United States. Ada Mae and Sonny both leave the farm as soon as they can. They both settle in the nearby city of Newcastle. Ada Mae works in a factory for forty years. Sonny works as a miner and then as a bartender. Mining and working in smoky bars give him emphysema. Hattie thinks both of her children would have been healthier if they had stayed on the farm and that she might outlive them. Ada Mae and Sonny both marry white people. Their children are all light skinned and none of them identify as black. Some in the family see it as a betrayal to their getting increasingly whiter with each generation when Hattie's granddaughter Julie marries Chimongo from Malawi.
Slim dies in 1988. Hattie continues to work on the farm into her old age. She only sees most of her family when they all come to visit her at Christmas. She believes they are waiting for her to die so they can inherit the farm and sell it. The only person in the family to whom Hattie is genuinely close is her great-grandchild Morgan. Although Hattie accepts that the girl she knew as Megan now prefers to be called Morgan, she cannot come to terms with the idea of someone being non-binary and wanting to be called they/them instead of she/her. Hattie instead happily accepts Morgan as a lesbian, having always suspected that was what her great-grandchild was. Hattie has no problem accepting Morgan's partner Bibi as female because she did not know Bibi before she transitioned.
Hattie has a secret that she has kept for nearly eighty years. When she was 14, she was made pregnant by the popular local boy Bobby. When Hattie's parents found out, they kept her hidden until she gave birth. Hattie named her baby daughter Barbara and wanted to keep her. Hattie's father, however, took the baby away. He told Hattie that having a child at her young age would ruin her life and her chances of getting married. Hattie does not know what happened to Barbara. Following her father's orders, Hattie never told anyone about the child. Slim never knew about her. Ada Mae and Sonny have grown old not knowing that they have a half-sister.
- Grace
Grace is born in the coastal town of South Shields in the north-east of England in 1895. Her mother, Daisy, is a 16 year-old girl. Her father, Wolde, is from Abyssinia (as Ethiopia is known at the time). He works as a stoker on board a ship and does not speak much English. The last time Daisy sees Wolde, he indicates to her that he will come back for her one day. When Daisy's father sees that she has given birth to a mixed race child, he orders her to give the baby away. Daisy's mother says nothing. Daisy chooses instead to leave home with Grace and never speaks to her parents again. She finds work at a factory and shares a home with another young woman who also has a child. Daisy tells Grace that they will one day go to Abyssinia, which Grace imagines as a fairy tale land. Daisy also talks about moving to the countryside and the idyllic life that Grace could live there.
Daisy dies of tuberculosis when Grace is 8 years-old. Shortly before her mother's death, Grace is taken to live at a children's home in the countryside. When other girls comment on Grace's brown skin and curly hair, she impresses them by telling them about the fairy tale land of Abyssinia from which her father comes. Grace largely gets to live the idyllic country life that her mother had imagined for her. She befriends other girls at the home, receives an education and is praised by her deportment teacher for her natural elegance. Grace is, however, singled out for punishment by the home's director Mrs. Langley, even though her behavior is no different from that of the other girls.
Some of the girls go straight from the children's home to jobs at a department store. Grace hopes to work there too. Neither Mrs. Langley nor the department store owner will allow it, however. Mrs. Langley instead finds Grace a job as a maid in the home of a man who has recently returned from India, has Indian servants and an Indian mistress.
While shopping one day, Grace is approached by a man who compares her to Queen Cleopatra. The man introduces himself as Joseph Ryendale. He tries to impress Grace by telling her he has just deposited a large amount of money in the bank. Joseph has recently inherited the farm Greenfields following the death of his father. Joseph had served in Egypt and Turkey during World War I and found the women there much more attractive than those in England.
Grace falls in love with Joseph and they soon marry. Grace moves into Joseph's farm. She initially faces some racism from villagers but most of them soon accept her as being local enough. The maid that Joseph employs, however, only takes orders from him and refuses to obey his black wife. Grace has the maid dismissed and does all the housework herself.
Grace gives birth to a son who dies shortly after birth and a daughter who dies after a year. Joseph keeps trying to get Grace pregnant. She knows that he just wants an heir for the farm and is not acting out of love. Their relationship breaks down and Grace becomes depressed. Her depression worsens when she gives birth to another daughter. Joseph declares that the child will be a survivor. He names the girl Harriet after hs grandmother who had a long and healthy life. Certain that the baby will die, Grace takes no interest in her. She soon comes to hate Harriet, thinking of her as a screaming demon. A nanny is employed to care for Harriet. For nearly three years, Grace barely washes or leaves her bedroom, spending most of the time in her nightclothes. Suddenly one day, Grace washes, dresses and goes to the kitchen to see Harriet. She takes a proper look at her daughter for the first time and begins to bond with her. Grace declares that from now on, Harriet will always be known as Hattie.
Joseph teaches Hattie to work on the farm, not caring that she is a girl. Grace and Joseph live to see Hattie marry the African-American Slim Jackson and have her two children Ada Mae and Sonny. Joseph is very happy when Hattie has a son who will eventually inherit the farm. Grace is only sorry that her own mother never saw her grow up and never knew Hattie, Slim or their children.
- The After-party
Amma Bonsu's play The Last Amazon of Dahomey is a great success. Among those attending its after-party are the non-binary social media star Morgan, Amma's daughter Yazz, Yazz's three friends Waris, Nenet and Courtney, Yazz's gay father Professor Roland Quartey and Amma's old friends Dominique and Shirley King. The bank vice-president Carole Williams is there because her husband Freddy provided some financial backing for the play.
Roland is disappointed when Yazz leaves him to talk to a tattooed person who could be either a man or a woman. In spite of all of his success, all Roland really wants is to hear his daughter say that she loves him.
Carole Williams found the play interesting. She would, however, have preferred to see a play about a black woman more like herself who achieves "legitimate success" rather than one about a lesbian warrior. She is somewhat embarrassed that she knows very little about Benin, where the play is set, or the neighboring country of Nigeria, where her parents were born. Carole reasons that it is not her fault. Her mother never took her to Nigeria because she could not bear to return to the country where both of her parents died tragically while trying to make a living.
Carole is unpleasantly surprised to see her former teacher Mrs. King at the after-party. Shirley King is equally unpleasantly surprised to see her former student there. They awkwardly talk to each other. Both agree that the play was not really to their taste. Shirley had hoped to boast about her friend's play to the other teachers but now feels she cannot because it was about lesbians. Carole is surprised to find out that Shirley is still teaching at Peckham School for Boys and Girls. Shirley says that she still mentors one promising student each year. This makes Carole feel even more uncomfortable. To bring their awkward meeting to an end, Carole belatedly thanks Shirley for her help. Shirley replies that she was just doing her duty and did not need to be thanked. Her tears, however, reveal how she truly feels. Carole realizes for the first time that Mrs. King genuinely helped her when nobody else could.
Shirley feels out of place among the many gay guests and artistic types attending the after-party. She wants to leave but wants to say goodbye to Amma first. She sees Dominique heading towards Amma. Although she had never resented Amma's friendship with Dominique, Shirley and Dominique had never been close. Shirley likes Dominique even less now that she is developing an American accent after living for many years in Los Angeles. Dominique had spoken to Shirley earlier that evening. Shirley felt that Dominique was looking down on her for living an average life. Shirley allows Amma to leave with Dominique without saying goodbye to her. Shirley passes Yazz as she leaves the party. Yazz does not introduce Shirley to the tattooed androgynous person she is talking to, which Shirley sees as proof that Yazz sees her as boring.
Dominique was not happy to see Amma's old friend Shirley, whom she suspects of being a secret homophobe, at the after-party. Nor was she happy to see some of the other old acquaintances she had left behind in her English past. Dominique goes back to Amma's house with her. They continue drinking and taking cocaine after Yazz and her friends have gone to bed. Amma worries that she will never be able to achieve another success like the one she has enjoyed that night again. Dominique agrees that she probably could not do so in England and should move to the United States. Amma says she could not leave her daughter or a country that she likes, even though it constantly frustrates her.
The conversation turns to the changing nature of feminism. Dominque says she sees trans women within the movement as troublemakers. She has been called transphobic for advertising her Women's Arts Festival as being for "women-born-women". She was forced to open it to trans women as well after someone named Morgan led a Twitter campaign against her. Amma tells Dominique that she needs to be open-minded if she wants to stay relevant. Amma says that Yazz keeps her from having old-fashioned attitudes and that Dominique should talk to young people more.
- Epilogue
It is two days before Penelope's eightieth birthday. She is traveling from London to the north-east of England by train. In her newspaper, Penelope sees a favorable review of a play about African lesbian warriors at the National Theatre. She is certain that she will not go to see it.
Penelope has recently entered into a relationship with a man slightly older than her named Jeremy. She has moved out of her home of many years to live with him. Penelope and Jeremy both enjoy reading very much, although they like different books. Jeremy never reads books written by female authors. He says he has tried to read books written by women and has never been able to get beyond the first chapter. Penelope and Jeremy share right-wing political views. Jeremy strongly dislikes feminism. He says his marriage of many years came to an end after his wife became a man-hating feminist and he caught her having sex with another woman. Having decided not to get into any disagreements with her new partner and to ignore anything about him she does not like, Penelope says that feminism has a lot to answer for.
Following a cancer scare, Penelope is reminded that she does not know anything about her family's medical history. She does not know anything about her family history at all. At her daughter Sarah's suggestion, she orders an Ancestry DNA kit. Penelope is shocked by the results. According to the DNA analysis, more of Penelope's ancestors came from Ireland than Great Britain while 16% of her DNA is typically associated with European Jews. Most shockingly of all for Penelope is that a total of 13% of her DNA is associated with various African locations. Penelope wonders if she should buy a Rastafarian-style wig and start selling drugs now she has found out she is part black.
Through the website of the company that provided the DNA analysis, Sarah finds out that her mother has more than one hundred genetic relatives who also applied for the kit, including a parent. Sarah contacts someone named Morgan who is handling email contacts for their great-grandmother Hattie Jackson. Hattie is delighted to find out that the girl she named Barbara, to whom she gave birth to when she was 14 and whose existence she kept secret for nearly eighty years, is still alive. At Morgan's invitation, Penelope is traveling north to meet her birth mother.
Penelope takes the long and expensive journey from the train station to Greenfields farm by taxi. The driver is African. Penelope jokingly thinks to herself that he might be a relative of hers. Penelope steps out of the taxi and an old woman comes out of the farmhouse to meet her. The old woman has unmistakably brown skin. Penelope thinks she looks like a "wild creature from the bush." Suddenly, however, Penelope realizes that the woman's race is not important and does not understand why race had been so important to her for so long. Penelope feels nothing but love for her mother and Hattie feels the same connection with her daughter.
Awards and accolades[]
Along with The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Girl, Woman, Other was the joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. It was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Australian Book Industry Awards' Women's Prize for Fiction.
Girl, Woman, Other was included in former US President Barack Obama's list of his nineteen favorite books of 2019. It was named Book of the Decade by the British newspaper The Guardian. It was named the best LGBT book by O, The Oprah Magazine and included in the list of the thirteen best feminist books by Elle magazine. The Canadian broadcaster CBC included Girl, Woman, Other in its 2019 list of the twenty-eight best international fiction works. Girl, Woman, Other was also one of the seventy books on the "Big Jubilee Read" list compiled by the British charity The Reading Agency and the BBC in celebration of the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.