Summary

In Chapter 2 — “Two: houses, flats, rooms, homes” (47) — Evaristo recalls the run-down, four-story detached house in Woolwich where she grew up. She wryly notes that the house featured distressed walls and unpolished floors before they were considered trendy. Her father insisted on doing home improvement tasks on his own. Once he fell through the attic rafters to the floor below, damaging the ceiling. During the summer, Evaristo and her siblings were tasked with cutting the grass in the garden with machetes; after they saw the television series Roots they complained they were being treated like plantation slaves.

She reflects that her mother chose this life with her father, although to Nana, it represented a world she had believed herself to have left behind. Evaristo was forced to share space with her siblings, but she expresses gratitude for not having had to...