Summary
Unlike the previous chapters, which each introduced three new characters, the final chapter wraps up and links the apparently disparate characters from each chapter together. The setting is the after-party on the premiere night of Amma's play, The Last Amazon of Dahomey.
Roland, Amma's good friend, is present, and is the first male character to have his own story told. He is Amma’s good friend, mentioned in chapter one, and is Yazz’s father. The gay child of Gambian immigrants, he finds success in academia and “the institution” (he has his own show on the BBC and is a published author), but (in his own words) unlike Amma, “his career has never been predicated on his perceived identities” of black and queer. He is partnered with Kenny, a white man who “prefers black flesh” while he himself prefers “white flesh,” and the two have an open relationship. Roland is pedantic and arrogant—as evidenced by his use of French words in ordinary conversation for no apparent reason other than to showcase his knowledge ("Le skyscraper," for example). Other characters, including his own daughter, find him irritating to be around because he seems to turn every conversation into a never-ending lecture. Shirley, though not a friend of Roland's, reflects that he uses his arrogance as a cover for deep vulnerabilities within.
Carole has also made it to Amma’s play—her husband Freddy is a shareholder in the National Theatre—though she, along with all the bankers there, feels uncomfortable in this “edgy” and “arty” scene. At the party, Shirley spots Carole, her “star student” from the Peckham days, and approaches. Though Carole has never thought kindly of the stern and rigid Shirley, she suddenly realizes that Mrs. King’s help may actually have changed her life for the better, and for the first time, feels and expresses a genuine gratitude to Shirley for mentoring her in grammar school. Shirley cries, and soon leaves the party with Lennox.
Amma
On premiere night, Amma is swamped with praise. The Last Amazon of Dohamey is a huge success, by critics' and audience members' accounts. Her best friend, Dominique, has flown in from America unannounced, and the two snort celebratory lines of cocaine together. They reminisce on the past and discuss the current sociopolitical climate: the two reflect that while they are now older, more established, and form part of institutions, they once were the radical youths that Yazz and Morgan’s generation represent now.
Analysis
Chapter 5 ties together a few of the loose ends created in the previous chapters of the novel. For example, Chapter One introduces the fact that Amma's play, The Last Amazon of Dahomey, will debut at the London National Theatre that night. After four more chapters and the introduction of over a dozen new characters, readers finally see how the play concludes: it's a raging success.
Other characters' stories and unfinished business are also resolved or fleshed out in this final chapter. Roland, for example, is mentioned in the beginning as Yazz's father, but it is only in the final chapter that he becomes his own character with a story to tell. Of course, the unfinished business between Mrs. King and Carole also comes to a head when the two meet again for the first time since Carole graduated from Peckham. Having harbored a grudge against Carole for over a decade, Shirley, in the moment that she confronts her former student, finds her anger slipping away. Similarly, Carole reevaluates the teenage angst she has nurtured towards Shirley since her childhood, and finds that her former teacher really was just a woman trying her best in a bad situation.
Though these moments of closure seem like completely separate incidents—in fact, just as each new chapter in this novel seems separate from the previous one—the difference here is that all these episodes of reconciliation take place in the same place, around the same time. What is so miraculous and special about this final chapter is that characters whose lives seem to run parallel suddenly find themselves heading face-first toward each other. The different backgrounds, stories, and life philosophies that mark each character come together, and everyone finds him, her, or themself to be just another human being doing his/her/their best to survive in the world.
