The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Lee, Andrea. Red Island House. Scribner, an Imprint of Simon and Schuster. New York, NY. First Edition, 2021.

The book, written entirely in present tense, is defined by the author as a novel, but because there is no central plot, the book comes across more as a group of short stories linked by a central character – a female African-American academic named Shay– and by theme. That theme, the birth of compassion and connection, is glancingly referenced in most of the short narratives in the book, but crystallizes into full clarity only in the book’s very final moments.

The first of the book’s narratives, “The Packet War,” is one of the longest in the book. First, it describes how Shay’s husband Senna, an impulsive Italian businessman, builds a vacation home on the island of Madagascar. The home, which is also used as a vacation spot, comes to be known as the Red House because of the unique technique used to make the floor of its expansive main entryway. The plot of “The Packet War” is built around Shay’s efforts to eliminate the negative, self-serving influence of the house’s manager, an unscrupulous businessman named Kristos. Shay’s efforts are helped by her housekeeper Bertine, whose knowledge of local traditions and spirituality helps Shay accomplish her goal.

The next several narratives consider different experiences of Shay’s as she divides her life, and her time, between her adopted homeland of Italy and her vacation time at the Red House. Each of the narratives has its own plot, but contains elements that reference, and explore, different aspects of Shay’s life. There are, for example, several references to a popular course on American Black Literature that she teaches at the university in Milan where she works. There are also references to her upper middle-class upbringing in the Western United States, and to how she and her family are descended from slaves. These references are part of the book’s overall thematic consideration of different aspects of race relations, and also contribute to the book’s overall thematic exploration of Shay’s growth into compassion and connection.

The narratives titled “Blondes,” and “The Rivals” consider Shay’s experience in terms of people she interacts with and/or hears about while on the island. Her presence in these narratives is relatively minimal, in that their plots tend to be focused on events experienced by others and the history of the characters playing out those events. Shay plays a more active role in the narratives of "Sirens" and "The Children," in which she gets involved in the plot and / or conflict played out in the lives of the central characters. She also plays a more significant role in “Noble Rot,” in which she narrates what appears to be the temptation to have an affair, and of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” There, Shay is forced to make a difficult moral decision about who to invite to a dinner party. She also plays a more immediate role in “Voice,” in which she and a friend have a frighting encounter with a man who may be a sexual predator, and in “Sister Shadow,” which considers her complicated relationship with her long-time housekeeper and friend, Bertine. In all these narratives, Shay is portrayed as developing a clearer awareness of her privilege, and how that privilege has separated her from the lives and experiences less privileged than she is.

The book closes with the narrative titled “Elephants’ Graveyard,” the events of which are set twenty years after the events of “The Packet War.” In “…Graveyard,” Shay’s husband Senna and his aging friends take over the running of the Red House, and Shay becomes less and less involved even as she is becoming less and less engaged in her marriage. One day, she is surprised to learn that Senna has fathered a child with a much younger woman. After struggling with a surge of strong and complicated feelings, Shay comes to realize that to reject the child is to reject important aspects of her past and therefore of her own identity. She therefore makes the conscious choice to welcome the child into the life, and the world, of her family. It is in this moment that Shay takes the final step away from defining her life in terms of privilege and towards defining her life in terms of compassion and connection – with others, with herself, and with her past.