a novel

1. In this section, we get a number of moments to reflect on growing affects our characters may experience around their bodily expression; who they are. On pg. 191, in Timothy's chapter, we get this notation: "He had perhaps not been careful enough: stared too long at a passing gentleman; said a male name during his slumber, maybe; or it could have been the gentle way in which his hand would occasionally drape at the end of his wrist. You could never know for sure what it was that inspired their malice, so every part of your inside self had to remain inside." How does this section begin to hint at the fear around queer living, and bodily expression, for perhaps both the enslaved and the slaver? How might it offer us some insight into the interior life of queer imagination in plantation landscapes?

2. Reflecting on an open question from our "before reading" reflections: how does the novel, 2/3 of the way through now, navigate between voices of the enslaved and the slaver? In what ways is a reader invited into those radically different perspectives, or to see through different eyes throughout the story?

3. This section of the novel begins to interlace the story between plantation life and African (precolonial Kosongo) territory. How does this impact the characterizations we read? How does it inflect our understandings of the story, up to now?

4. Queer and transgender characters are introduced throughout this section, from references to those who "rejected 'she' for 'he'" (p. 128) to later in the novel, when we read of someone called Henry who would only answer to Emma (p. 300). How important are these conversations about queer and transgender life, throughout the novel, for our experience as we read?

5. We return to this question in each section: this story is told from the perspective of the enslaved and the slaver alike. In this section, how does this narrative characterization unfold? What are we learning about both of these voices? How might we begin to understand the colonial and decolonial, from this unique narrative choice?

6. REFLECTION ACTIVITY: PAGES 123-278
Sit down and reflect on where our characters are, and where this story has taken us, thus far. What guides your final approach to the end of the book, as you move ahead? What responses have you found yourself having, as you've experienced this section of the book, both to Isaiah and Samuel's relationship but also to the realm of other characters you have met on this journey? What questions, reactions, and affects do you have, as you finish this section?