Summary
Tommy Odds goes to Lynne’s house and stands next to her while she sews, talking about her clothing. He reflects on the evolution of his feelings towards Lynne; at first, he had wanted to violently make love to her, but eventually he grew to like her, especially because she was often willing to do him favors such as sewing patches for him and his friends.
The narrative switches to Lynne’s perspective, revealing Tommy Odds's rape of her. Lynne does not struggle or scream during the act, but she feels unable to scream because Tommy guilted her into allowing it. She cries and tells Tommy to stop. Lynne feels that she missed her opportunity to force Tommy away from her because she felt too guilty to do so. Afterwards, she feels compassion for Tommy; she kisses his stump and tells him that she forgives him.
The next day, Tommy comes back with three of his friends. He asks Lynne what they did yesterday, and Lynne says that Tommy raped her. Tommy denies that the act was a rape. Lynne is afraid that Tommy and the three other men will gang rape her, although she is aware that this expectation is caused by racist attitudes. The three men disdainfully rebuke Tommy’s goading and leave. Tommy forces Lynne to the bed, spits on her, urinates on the floor, and leaves.
When Truman comes home, Lynne tells him that she is leaving him and hysterically admits what happened. Truman refuses to believe it or to give Lynne money so she can leave. Truman begins sleeping on a couch in the community center to avoid Lynne’s constant crying, and one night he sees Tommy there. Truman asks Tommy why he raped Lynne, and insults him while grabbing him by his collar. Tommy shoots back that Lynne only ever married Truman because she felt guilty for being white and merely wanted to try something new. He tells Truman that he doesn’t care if Truman kills him. Truman turns away.
Lynne sits alone at home, afraid to go to the community center. She sells a poem to make money for two months’ worth of birth control pills. Eventually, she gets lonely and starts allowing people to visit the house again. When she feels alone, she plays checkers with Alonzo, a black man who works in a scrap yard, and is so grateful for him that she invites him to sleep with her. Other men ask Lynne to sleep with them, and because she sees their faces become filled with hatred when she refuses, Lynne starts to capitulate. Their wives find out and the men stop visiting Lynne, until, eventually, it’s just her and Truman again. Eventually, the birth control pills run out and Lynne gives birth to a daughter, Camara. Lynne takes Camara to New York and uses Welfare to get an apartment. She sends Truman back to Meridian.
The narrative jumps forward to when Lynne is living in New York City. She is rushing to Truman’s apartment across town to tell him that Camara has been attacked. As she runs, she reflects on her now out-of-shape body and how she often felt inadequate for Truman. Once she gets to his apartment, she hears a woman’s voice and expects that it’s Meridian. However, she catches sight of a young blonde woman and begins to laugh, asking the woman why she never learns. The woman tells Lynne that she and Truman have been living together for two months and will get married as soon as Truman sells enough paintings to pay for it.
Truman and Lynne’s daughter, Camara, dies from the racist attack she endured. She was only six and had been attacked by white men. Stricken with grief, Truman and Lynne both seek solace in Meridian’s company. One evening, Meridian and Lynne sit together and watch a television program on the life of black men in the South. They are both aware that when Lynne was heartbroken, she became addicted to pills and went back to the South, where she had a public breakdown.
The next section, "Lynne," travels back in time to when Lynne had gone back South, grieving Camara’s death. She had gone to the house where she and Truman were once happy. The house was empty by that time, and Lynne slept in the cold dark. She reflects on a Jewish family who ran a delicatessen in town and had always acted cruelly towards her because of her relationship with Truman, especially when she was pregnant. The end of the section returns to Lynne and Meridian watching the TV program in New York. Lynne says that she wasn’t meant to be white because she feels too guilty. Meridian jokes that only white women are perfect, and Lynne replies that “their time will come.”
Analysis
Lynne’s rape is one of the most uncomfortable and complicated scenes in the book. The episode emphasizes the violence of typical rape in the South; Altuna Jones even believes that rape necessarily involves murder. Although Lynne’s experience was different, she certainly did not consent to sex with Tommy and was clearly raped; however, the lack of typical violence makes people skeptical that the rape did in fact happen, which only increases Lynne’s pain. The entire act was bound up with intense feelings of guilt for Lynne, especially in the wake of Tommy’s injury.
Lynne also expects violence to occur when Tommy shows up with three other men. She is aware that this expectation is informed by cultural racist depictions of black brutality, symbolized by the painting in Esquire. Later on, Lynne can never stop feeling guilty for how other people react to her. She begins to acquiesce to sex with other men because she can’t bear to see the hatred in their eyes when she rejects them. However, this acceptance only serves to make Lynne more miserable in the end, as she attempts to convince herself that all of her sexual partners love her, but eventually they all leave.
The conversation between Truman and Tommy reveals that Truman has deep doubts about his relationship with Lynne. When Tommy claims that Lynne only married Truman to try something new, as if he were a mango she hadn’t eaten yet, Truman feels that Tommy may be right. At the same time, the conversation shows just how depressed Tommy has become and how desperate his mindset is. He no longer cares if he lives or dies, even inviting his friend to go ahead and kill him. Both men have been broken down by the tragic experiences of their lives and no longer have the strength to go against each other.
In the attack on Camara, white violence against black children edges up against the narrative of Truman, Lynne, and Meridian. Camara is only six when she is attacked by grown, racist white men; even worse, the adults are aware that this kind of inhumane violence is actually common. This, of course, does not lessen their grief. Although Truman and Lynne have had their share of problems in their relationship, this tragedy supersedes their past and brings them together in grief while splitting them up in an attempt to escape the past. Only Meridian, their perennial support system, serves as a link between the two.
Finally, Lynne’s experience at the delicatessen deals with themes of race and ethnicity. Because of her relationship with a black man, Lynne—a Jew—is rejected by a group of Southern Jews. This makes her resentful of her religion and ethnicity. She imagines what the delicatessen owners are thinking about her, filling her own thoughts with angry self-criticism that she pictures stemming from their mouths. In the end, she is filled with “bitter contempt” toward not only the delicatessen owners but all Southern Jews. Her experience adds another layer of complication to the issues of race and class that Meridian explores so fully.
