Throughout If Beale Street Could Talk, the family unit plays a central role in the joy and tensions of the novel’s characters. Critic Trudier Harris claims that "[t]he family [serves] as the ultimate unit of salvation" in the novel. This is perhaps most evident in the way Tish’s family accepts Fonny into their lives. Fonny’s problems are Tish’s problems, and Tish’s problems are the family’s problems. Sharon repeatedly affirms Fonny’s place within the collective. When Ernestine states: "Shit. We got to work it out. Fonny's like one of us,” Sharon counters: "'He is one of us" (40). Thus, the Rivers family takes on Fonny’s struggles as their own. Tish and Joseph also embrace the interconnectivity of family through the reality of her pregnancy, "I was his daughter, all right: I had found someone to love and I was loved and he was released and verified. That child in my belly was also, after all his child, too, for there would have been no Tish if there had been no Joseph…That baby was our baby, it was on its way, my father's great hand on my belly held it and warmed it: in spite of all that hung above our heads, that child was promised safety" (49).
Though the Rivers family acts as a force for good and salvation within the novel, the family unit can also be united as a negative power. The Hunt family stands in opposition to the virtue of the Rivers family, yet their unity in such a stance is undeniable. Tish describes the Hunt family as a unit composed of different individuals which fit into one collective stance: "There was, then, this funny silence: and everyone was staring at me. I felt Mrs. Hunt's eyes, more malevolent, more frightened, than ever. She was leaning forward, one hand tight on the spoon buried in her ice cream. Sheila looked terrified. Adrienne's lips curled in a contemptuous smile, and she leaned forward to speak, but her father's hand, hostile, menacing, rose to check her. She leaned back. Frank leaned forward" (67). In this passage, the different actions of the Hunt family members compound to form a unified stance of “hostil[ity]” and tension.
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