Love: A Novel

Content Warning: This section discusses racism, sexual assault, child abuse, child marriage, and violence.

“Naturally all of them have a sad story: too much notice, not enough, or the worst kind. Some tale about dragon daddies and false-hearted men, or mean mamas and friends who did them wrong. Each story has a monster in it who made them tough instead of brave, so they open their legs rather than their hearts where that folded child is tucked.”

In the book’s Prologue, L. notes that even the toughest, wildest seeming women were once vulnerable children and that childhood trauma is often the source of adulthood dysfunction. She uses the language of fairytales (“dragon daddies” and monsters) to further emphasize this childlike way of understanding the world. As well as The Corruption of Innocence, this quotation also relates to the novel’s themes about The Greater Pleasure of Platonic Love than Romantic Love: in L.’s recounting, sex becomes a way of hiding the vulnerability brought with love, which is represented by the “folded child.”

“Something better. Like a story that shows how brazen women can take a good man down. I can hum to that.”

L. opens the novel by recounting stories that the people of Up Beach told to frighten each other and to make people fall in line and obey social rules. However, she decides that a story about “brazen women” would be “better.” Many people outside the Cosey household believe that he was a “good man” who was taken down by the women in his life. However, L.’s recounting of the story reveals the darkness in Cosey and the complexity of the women involved, emphasizing her role as the quasi Greek chorus of the novel.