Gisèle Pineau: Writing the Dimensions of Migration

The novel accounts for two journeys and two different kinds of exiles. The first exile is [Julia Benjamin]'s. She was married at a very young age to a light-skinned black man who, according to her account, never thought much of her because of her blackness and lack of education. Julia is an abused woman: physically, because she is beaten at her husband's whims; psychologically, because all she does is pray to God that her man turn into a loving being.