The author writes a series of letters to her 18 year old son to help him (and the book's readers) to understand her life and the world we find ourselves in. These letters have an originality and vitality, at times meandering off on a tangent before getting back to the story she was telling.
The author is a Black woman born in Brooklyn, she spent her teenage years in Trinidad and Tobago and now 18 years living in Denmark. Her letters are at times very personnel and cover the modern world sins - racism, sexism, US international interference, US democracy gone wrong, the impact of colonisation on the colonised, the forgotten histories of slavery and imperialism, US imprisonment rates of Blacks and the poor, refuges, climate change and capitalism.
As the author has the advantage of living in three different countries her thoughts are worldly, compassionate and based on both practical experience and various studies, papers, books, music and folk tales. She has given her son and all readers much to reflect on.