Summary

This “conversation” begins with a few paragraphs in italicized prose, describing how Junior, a young black student, kept bringing different sorts of bread for his friends at an all-black school to try. Those friends gradually came to enjoy everything he brought, particularly croissants. They “drew the line,” however, “at brioche” (173).

The narration then becomes non-italicized and follows the conversation between Brian and Eldwin, a pair of black graduate school students working on a class project: “to collect an interesting story from another student in the class and decide which details to recount in order to form a profile of both person and region” (174). Eldwin is interviewing Brian, with the narration saying that he (Eldwin) “was two shades lighter than Brian, but also believed himself two shades blacker, as far as those things can be measured” (175). The narration also suggests that Brian...