THE STORY OF A YOUNG GIRL WHOSE MOTHER CANNOT DISTINGUISH LOVE FROM POSSESSION Rozelle Quinn is so fair-skinned that she can pass for white. Her ten children are mostly light, too. They constitute the only world she rules and controls. Her power over them is all she has in an otherwise cruel and uncaring universe. Rozelle favours her light-skinned kids, but Tangy-Mae, thirteen, her darkest-skinned child, is the brightest. She desperately wants to continue with her education, but her mother has other plans. She wants her daughter to work cleaning houses for whites, like she does, and accompany her to the "Farmhouse", where Rozelle earns extra money by bedding men.