Masculinity

The concept of masculinity and its relationship with the Black community forms a cornerstone of the novel. Isaac struggled as a young man to unpack his feelings of inadequacy and shame for being emotional and “feminine” as a result of his father’s conditioning as a child. As his life comes to an end, Jacob has finally reformed his views on masculinity and what it means to be a man and is desperate to show his son how he is changed and to seek forgiveness.

The narrator begins with Jacob recounting his own childhood memories with his father in order to establish a parallel between himself and his son and the way the cycle of abuse and trauma establishes itself and continues. As a child, Jacob struggled not with lessons of masculinity that he could not embody from his father, but rather with the continual shame...