Summary

"Black-Eyed Women" is a short story narrated in the first person by an unnamed female narrator. While the majority of the chapter is told in the past tense, including flashbacks to the narrator's childhood, the very end of the chapter makes it clear that she has actually been telling the reader the story in present tense, and that the past-tense narrative is her remembering something that had happened to her.

The narrator in "Black Eyed Women" is a 38-year-old woman who came to America from Vietnam when she was in her early teens. She now works as a ghostwriter, helping people who have met with tragedies in their lives to pen their stories. She does not give her name, and it is not until halfway through the story that her gender becomes apaprent. The story opens with the narrator remembering a time when...