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 Slurs including the n-word are prevalent in the novel, as are other outdated and offensive terms for Black people, which are only replicated in this guide in direct quotes. One of the titles in this section includes the n-word, which is not obscured; however, all other instances of the n-word are obscured.

The narrator describes a brutal birth that leaves the mother dead and the child covered in blood. The narrator says they will call the child Lilith. Lilith has black skin and green eyes. With her mother gone, the overseer forces a woman named Circe to take care of her. As Lilith grows up, she is a wild, carefree child. When she begins to bleed and they tell her that she is a woman rather than a girl, Lilith wants to turn back time.

Lilith notices that Johnny-jumpers, a group of enslaved men who keep watch over the enslaved people working in the field, have begun to notice her. Because their overseer Jack Wilkins allows it, Johnny-jumpers rape and steal and abuse anyone they want at night.