Summary

Epigraph:

The epigraph consists of two cancer-related passages. One is from Audre Lorde's "The Cancer Journals," highlighting the author's difficulty in dealing with her cancer. Faced with pain and perhaps death, Lorde understands that she is "not supposed to exist," but she does still carry on. Lorde wonders how she has managed to beat the statistics and stave off dead, "like a bee that was never meant to fly," thinking that there must be some way that the death inside her can be reconciled with the life she lives.

The second passage in the epigraph is an excerpt from the Susan G. Komen organization regarding cancer rates amongst African-American women. Though their risk is the same as white women, African-American women are at higher risks to die from breast cancer, almost 42 percent in 2012.

Prologue:

Thandi begins the novel by discussing the arrangement of...