Summary

The novel opens with two quotes about the concepts of dreaming and living a life off the beaten path. Author Alice Walker then directly tells the reader that her paternal grandmother, Kate Nelson, was murdered when her father was a young man, and that “this novel is a memorial to the psychic explorer she might have become” (1).

In “Cool Revolution,” the first chapter of the novel, the protagonist Kate is meditating in a room with many others and has been doing so for many hours. When meditation is over, Kate and the others gather around a teacher. He begins giving a lesson about “hot” revolutions in Africa, Cuba, and the Caribbean (4). He explains these revolutions have failed because of the violence they used. He says that the only revolutions capable of succeeding are “cool” revolutions (4). This...