Friendship
This novel offers much more than a polite and comical portrait of friendship. Right off the bat, friendship is measured against the weight of full blown tragedy. In the name of friendship, the women have to band together to support each other as their village gradually becomes more infected by AIDS. To make matters worse, the village culture is fiercely misogynistic and the men of the tribe often allow themselves to do whatever they want, not viewing their wives as important. This means that the women will have to depend on each other as their sole community as they navigate their own dangerous marriages.
Mourning and loss
The imagery of loss is offered in the first opening sequence, and the portraits of death and grief define much of the narrative. Each of the women is asked to grieve their lost friend, Beauty, while also negotiating in their marriages for their basic human decency. As they attempt to reconcile their human dignity to their husbands's socially tolerated misogyny, they realize that each person will also lose a tremendous amount of peace and comfort; some lose their marriage and their health. The imagery defines their quest for tolerable treatment and long life; they seek long life to honor their friend's legacy which is an important aspect of this imagery.
Misogyny
Toxic masculinity has never had such a concrete depiction in a book. The men in this town share hateful beliefs about women in their cultural identity. They view women like livestock, as objects for their own desire and pleasure. Instead of love, the men choose domination and power, even when their wives offer them approval and love and patience. The men demonstrate their hatred through concrete imagery which includes divorce, abuse, assault, rape, and intentionally spreading AIDS to their families. These are the novel's variations on a theme of misogyny.
The AIDS epidemic
The AIDS epidemic is something that is commonly known about, but this novel fleshes out what that epidemic actually looks like in real life. As the village community gradually becomes more infected with the deadly disease, the men of the community become more hostile, because they know that their "boy's club" is the real cause of the mass spread. The epidemic is tragic because the women in the community are essentially powerless to protect themselves from contracting the illness. The women demand their husbands' be tested, but they are attacked, raped, divorce, and abused.
