The Book of Night Women

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of enslavement, sexual violence, torture, and murder, including the abuse and death of children. Slurs including the n-word are prevalent in the novel, as are other outdated and offensive terms for Black people, which are only replicated in this guide in direct quotes.

“Lilith start to wonder if this new trail any worse than the old one. If a empty room better than a room with a woman who hate her, a man who mad.”

This consideration begins Lilith’s search for happiness under the confines of slavery. Without the right to freely communicate and learn, she must make sense of her world based on her own experiences. These confines force her to compare complete isolation to living with Circe and Tantalus and wonder which is worse.

“But sooner or later this place burn the England out of an England man. Some people, like the redcoat soldiers, fight and fight and not even see that they lose from the day they dock in Montego Bay. That is England a man scratching out when him balls itch, that is England he spitting out whenever tobacco juice leave him mouth.”

This quote references fire, foreshadowing the fact that the rebellions use fire to try to burn England out of the land itself. The fact that England cannot maintain its character in the colonies implies the inevitable failure of colonization. England cannot turn the world into England because the world will transform it.

“Homer say, Pretty gal go a river and see herself in water. Pretty gal drown when she go down to kiss herself. Lilith hiss at what Homer say, but she mark that Homer say it.”

Homer alludes to the Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with his reflection and died. This quote is representative of Lilith and Homer’s relationship in that Lilith refuses to acknowledge Homer’s wisdom out loud but internalizes it.