Part 3, Intermission: Chapters 1–4 Summary

Part 3, Chapter 1 opens as Aimee tells the narrator that “we have to be the change we want to see.” By “we,” the narrator explains, Aimee means people like herself, with money and the power to do good. She is currently building a girls’ school in a West African village. The narrator can’t help thinking that her mother would say that supporting the right politicians was the way to effect change. She feels her mother at her shoulder, “an invisible conscience” who pours “poison in [her] ear.”

In Chapter 2, readers learn that Aimee is 42, though she looks 26, and the narrator is now almost 30. Aimee reveals that her manager, Judy Ryan, has been talking to the narrator’s mother about the school project in Africa. The narrator then reflects on memories about her life in London: her mother has been elected to Parliament, and the narrator has seen Tracey. She tells Aimee about the encounter: she went to a show on a date, and Tracey was dancing in it, though the narrator didn’t try to connect with her. Aimee threatens to call Tracey, and the narrator protests, saying that Tracey did something terrible to her when they were 22. She tells Aimee about the mysterious incident, which somehow involved the narrator’s father caught in a sex act, and Aimee laughs.

In Chapter 4, the narrator revisits a lunch in London with her mother earlier that year, shortly before the beginning of her Parliament term. Her mother has brought her lover, Miriam. The mother tells the narrator that Aimee should be working in partnership with the government and using Miriam’s educational contacts unless she wants to be perceived as a “white woman sav[ing] Africa.” When the narrator rebuffs the advice, her mother says she gives too much to Aimee, who is sucking out her youth and making her rootless. As the narrator leaves, Miriam hands her a folder full of suggestions for the school project. The narrator recalls her father’s funeral a year before and her belief that his white children were more believable than she ever was.

Part 3, Intermission: Chapters 1–4 Analysis

Part 3 begins to bring to light some of the mysteries in the novel and events that were foreshadowed earlier. The break between the narrator and Tracey was because of something to do with her father and sex. The mother’s desire for self-improvement has culminated in her election to Parliament. The father is dead; his white children, seen only once earlier in the novel, remain loyal to him.

The theme of cultural appropriation takes shape as the narrator’s mother criticizes Aimee for playing at being a “white woman sav[ing] Africa.” Critics have pointed to Madonna as one inspiration for the character; the singer, who adopted four children from Malawi, launched a children’s hospital in the country in 2017. Other celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and U2’s Bono, have also created charities in parts of Africa; these have been accused of, in the words of CNN.com’s Andrew M. Mwenda, acting “as a platform . . . to promote their brand to their audiences at home.” While the country where the girls’ school is located is not named, references to Banjul in (the Gambian capital), the Wolof language, and the symbolic figure called the kankurang suggest that it is The Gambia.

The narrator’s relationship with her mother remains as complicated as ever. While she is impatient with her mother’s advice about Aimee’s work in Africa, she has also been thoroughly indoctrinated by her mother and pictures her as an “invisible conscience.” At the same time, she compares her mother’s advice to poison, leaving readers to infer that the truth lies somewhere between these extremes. The narrator’s description of her life with Aimee is indeed rootless, as her mother points out, and centered entirely around pleasing the selfish, manipulative singer.