Who is Joyce Moses from Lost in the City: Stories and what is their importance? Lost_in_the_City English & Literature Joyce Moses | Lost in the City: Stories

Joyce Moses is a single mother of three children, Santiago, Taylor, and Clovis. The children have different fathers and Joyce is living with Ricky, another man. oyce routinely promises Ricky that she will soon get pregnant and have another child with him but in fact she has been medically sterilized. Her deception of Ricky is typical of her outlook on life in which morality at best is dubious and always circumstantial. Joyce has spent most of her life in abject poverty but recently her oldest son, Santiago, a teenager, has becomes something of a figure in the criminal underworld of the city. Santiago has become very wealthy and has purchased for Joyce a large home in an upscale neighborhood. The home has been filled with all sorts of brand new furniture and things, much of which is still boxed up in closets or cupboards. Joyce is fully aware that her son deals in drugs and that her newly acquired wealth derives from illicit drug deals and other criminal activities but she is not concerned by this. Joyce's close friend Pearl is a lifelong acquaintance. Pearl's son, Humphrey, is the same age as Santiago and at first the two young men entered into the criminal life together. Yet while Santiago has become successful if cold-blooded, Humphrey has become a drug addict and is nominally homeless. Both men view each other's mother as a sort of surrogate mother so that Humphrey calls Joyce "Mama Joyce" and Santiago calls Pearl "Mama Pearl." Joyce's own mother is very estranged from Joyce and her children by their attitude toward crime and illegal money. When Santiago eventually murders Humphrey over some unspoken infraction, Joyce calls Pearl and consoles her but after hanging up the telephone, she surveys her home with pride.