The narrator is also having an affair with a woman named Marpessa Delissa Dawson who he has known since childhood. When Dickens disappears, the narrator goes to help an elderly man named Hominy Jenkins. He studies agricultural science at UC Riverside in the hope of turning his father’s land into an ostrich farm. The narrator takes over his father’s role of “Nigger Whisperer,” however he isn’t very good at it. Signs announcing the town’s existence are also removed. He reflects again on the difficulties facing black people, and concludes: “fuck being black.” Five years after the narrator’s father’s death, Dickens is quietly removed from the map of California. He feels relieved on the day of his father’s burial. The narrator is granted a $2 million settlement after the wrongful death of his father at the hands of the police. Growing up, the narrator did not know his mother he tracks her down later in life and learns that her name is Laurel Lescook. At first, the narrator feels sure that his father is going to leap back to life and explain his death as just another way of teaching his son about the plight of the black race. The narrator’s father is killed by the police. However, both his father and Dickens disappear, leaving him with no idea who he is.

When the narrator was young, he assumed he would lead an average life and stay in Dickens. The narrator’s father was known as “the Nigger Whisperer” because of his habit of spending time on the streets, encouraging his down-on-their-luck neighbors to improve their lives. The narrator’s father spent decades as interim dean of the Psychology department at West Riverside Community College, and would use the narrator in his experiments. They lived in Dickens, a “ghetto community” on the outskirts of Los Angeles. In Chapter One, the narrator explains that his father was a social scientist and the founder of something he called Liberation Psychology. After inhaling, he exclaims: “Equal justice under the law!” The court session begins. Now, sitting in the Supreme Court, he smokes marijuana from a pipe, reasoning that the crime he has been charged with is so extreme that he will not be prosecuted for anything as minor as pot smoking. He spent the previous day walking around Washington, DC.

Nonetheless, he now finds himself handcuffed inside the Supreme Court after receiving a letter informing him that his case was selected to be heard. In the prologue, the narrator admits that, though this may be surprising to hear from a black man, he has never committed a crime.

The sellout novel