The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Stringfellow, Tara. Memphis. Penguin Random House LLC, 2022.

Tara Stringfellow's novel Memphis is set in Memphis, Tennessee over the course of several decades, spanning from 1937 to 2003. The novel is written from the first and the third person points of view and employs an atypical narrative structure. The following summary relies upon a linear mode of explanation.

Hazel was growing up in Memphis, Tennessee the year her father died in a flood. Not long after the flood, her mother Della sent her to the local deli for some meat. Wearing her late father's boots, Hazel knew she would survive any dangers in her wake. Shortly after arriving at the deli, a white cop threatened Hazel for occupying the white section of the shop. A young Black boy noticed what was about to happen, and protected Hazel. Outside, Hazel learned the boy's name was Myron. She immediately fell in love with him, associating him with safety and comfort.

After Hazel and Myron married and Myron served in and returned from World War II, they officially began their life together. Around the same time that Hazel discovered she was pregnant, Myron became the first Black detective on the Memphis police force. Though Myron tried to explain the white officers' aggression towards him, Hazel did not understand the dynamic until she learned the white cops had murdered her husband.

Years later, raising her daughter Miriam alone, Hazel became involved in the civil rights movement. She turned her Memphis home into a gathering house for young revolutionaries. During this time she had an affair with a visiting activist, by whom she became pregnant with her second daughter August. By the time she realized it, the man was gone. Not long after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Hazel learned that August's father had also been killed.

Shortly before Miriam gave birth to her first daughter, Joan, Hazel died of a heart attack. Miriam had thought that her first baby would fix hers and her husband Jax's problems. Her mother's death, however, clouded the pregnancy with grief. A few years later, she traveled to Memphis to have her second child. She stayed in the family house with her sister August and August's son Derek. While Miriam was sitting on the porch one day, awaiting her daughter Mya's birth, Joan emerged with blood running from between her legs. She and August realized Derek had raped her.

Seven years later, Miriam fled her abusive marriage and returned to Memphis with Joan and Mya. Miriam worried that moving her daughters into the house with Derek proved she was a bad mother. August assured her they would protect the girls from her violent son.

A few years later, Derek was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for murder. Joan finally felt safe and free for the first time in her life. Over the following years, she devoted herself to her artistic endeavors, even pursuing college art classes while still in high school. Although Miriam knew Joan was talented, she urged her daughter to pursue a career in nursing like she and her grandmother had done before her. With time and August's encouragement, Miriam learned to support Joan. When Joan was accepted into the Royal College of Art in London, Miriam eagerly helped Joan plan for her future.