Wallace is determined never to return to his old life. Wallace did not have a close relationship with his father, and he has felt no grief for his father’s passing. Wallace’s father is also dead, but he died only a few weeks ago. Wallace’s mother eventually died of a stroke. In his teenage years, Wallace was in an abusive relationship with a boy who often hit him. Wallace was repeatedly raped by an adult man. His parents were alcoholics who sometimes beat him. His household and his community generally considered homosexuality to be a sin. He was born and raised in a small town in Alabama. Miller asks about Wallace’s past, so Wallace reluctantly agrees to talk about it. Wallace removes himself from the party, and he and Miller spend the night together. Vincent becomes flustered and appears guilty. Wallace then impulsively reveals the evidence of Vincent’s possibly infidelity. Wallace is hurt by the comments, as well as by the fact that no one speaks in his defense. During the dinner, a student named Roman makes offensive, racist remarks to Wallace.

That night, at Cole’s request, Wallace attends a dinner party hosted by several of their classmates. Cole is unsure what to do, and he is fearful of confronting Vincent. Cole confides that he has found evidence that his boyfriend, Vincent, may have been sexually unfaithful. He goes to the school’s tennis courts to play tennis with Cole, a generally friendly classmate of Wallace’s. Wallace, unable to maintain a passive composure, speaks angrily back at Dana and then leaves. However, on this day, a particularly hostile lab mate named Dana yells at him and uses racist homophobic slurs. Wallace has faced much racial discrimination and racist hostility in the lab, but he does his best to ignore it. The next day, Wallace goes into his assigned lab at the university, to work. Wallace and Miller have mostly had a standoffish relationship, and Miller claims to be heterosexual, but they spend the night together and have sex.

That evening, a sexual/romantic relationship begins to develop between Wallace and a classmate of his named Miller. However, one day, he decides to join some of the other students when they gather to socialize at a nearby pier. As a result, he feels alienated from most of his peers. Wallace has been in the program for multiple years, and he has faced many instances of racial discrimination, both social and structural. He is the first Black student in the program in about 30 years. The protagonist, Wallace, is a gay, Black graduate student in the university’s biochemistry program. The novel is set approximately in the present day, at an unnamed university in the American Midwest. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Taylor, Brandon.

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