Protagonist

The novel’s unnamed protagonist is an American-born woman of Indian descent. She lives in North Carolina, and she was also born there. She is a professional journalist; she used to be a crime reporter, but she was demoted at one point, likely due to racial prejudice on the part of her employer. She was born in the U.S. and is therefore a U.S. citizen. However, she faces much racial discrimination in her town, and the white residents of her town often do not believe that she is American. She is often racially profiled by law enforcement officers, and she has experienced many instances of police detaining her for minor or nonexistent infractions. On at least one occasion, they tried to arrest her because they believed she was a different person they were pursuing.

The novel’s story is framed around the protagonist’s death, when...