48 pages • 1 hour read
Kei MillerAugustown: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Prologue-Chapter 21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “The Autoclaps”
Part 3, Prologue Summary
The narrator introduces and explains the term “autoclaps.” It’s from the Jamaican dialect and means “an impending disaster, calamity, trouble on top of trouble” (157). Another person might say it means “heart collapse.” Most Jamaicans would agree that it comes from the Biblical term “apocalypse,” meaning the end of the world. However, the narrator argues that it actually comes from a 14th-century English word, “afterclap,” meaning “an unexpected, often pleasant sequel to a matter that had been considered closed” (158).
Part 3, Chapter 17 Summary
Beverly Hills is an affluent area of Jamaica near Augustown. The houses in that neighborhood are large mansions, contrasting with the small, concrete houses of the suburb Mona, which is right below Beverly Hills. Mrs. G, the principal of Augustown Primary, lives in Beverly Hills with her wealthy husband Mr. Garrick. She struggles in her role as principal; she loved teaching and finds administrative work banal and less fulfilling. Mr. Garrick pushed her to apply for the job because he felt that her role as a teacher in a poverty-stricken elementary school lowered his social status. Since she misses teaching, Mrs. G has started teaching their domestic helper named Miss G, who is later revealed to be Gina, Kaia’s mother and Ma Taffy’s niece.
Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary
Three years ago, Mrs. G woke up with a pit in her stomach. She tried to calm herself, thinking of her son who is in a PhD program at Harvard after finishing his college degree. Mrs. G was proud of him for his academic prowess. She realized her domestic helper Miss Liza had left after stealing clothes and a radio. Mrs. G had a number of helpers come and go after stealing, unable to find a suitable replacement for Blanche, her last helper, who moved to America to help her elderly sister.
Miss G arrived at the gate, and though Mrs. G was initially rude to her, she then offered her work. Miss G accepted, and Mrs. G gave her a tour of the house. Miss G shocked Mrs. G by correcting her about the artistic background of her vases. Miss G asked Mrs. G to teach her O-level subjects, and Mrs. G agreed.
Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary
Miss G did not come to Mrs. G’s house to ask for a job. She had rehearsed a speech for Mrs. G, but when she arrived, she became too nervous and agreed to take the job. She became immersed in her work, both the housework and her studies. Miss G became the best student that Mrs. G ever had, and Mrs. G even helped her apply to college. Mr. Garrick once asked Mrs. G why she was so invested in Miss G, as she’s not their daughter. Mrs. G took this question negatively because the Garricks lost a daughter 15 years ago.
In the present, Mrs. G and Miss G sit under a tree in the yard, looking at a letter from the University of the West Indies. It’s a thick envelope, and Mrs. G thinks it’s an acceptance. Miss G declines to open it with Mrs. G, saying she needs to open it with Ma Taffy and Kaia. They hear Sister Gilzene’s singing in the wind. The narrator states that Mrs. G will always remember four things about this day: seeing Kaia cry as she left the school, the sound of Sister Gilzene’s song, the unopened letter, and Miss G, who will be the next to die on the day of the autoclaps.
Part 3, Chapter 20 Summary
Kaia cries as he walks home, his head feeling cold and unfamiliar without the comforting weight of his dreadlocks. He only cries for 10 minutes; another teacher failed to comfort him and told him to stop crying. Instead of going to report the incident to Mrs. G, he headed home to Ma Taffy. Ma Taffy thinks that if Kaia had told Mrs. G, she would have dismissed Mr. Saint-Josephs and then driven Kaia home before apologizing to Ma Taffy and offering an IOU (I owe you).
As Kaia walks home, he thinks about how his mother told him that his hair was his strength and that he is a lion, like her and Ma Taffy. He wonders if he is no longer a lion now that part of his identity is gone. Ma Taffy smells the sick, sweet smell accompanying him before she even touches his head and realizes what injustice has been done to him.
Part 3, Chapter 21 Summary
Ma Taffy’s favorite niece has always been Gina, due to her intelligence. She had minimal hopes for the other two girls, just wanting them to survive, which they did. Gina comforted Ma Taffy after she was blinded; she could feel Gina’s thoughts and the machinations of her mind. Ma Taffy took a special interest in Gina and taught her more than the others, specifically how to “use the tools of Babylon against Babylon” (190). Ma Taffy wanted Gina to thrive, even in a society that sought to oppress her due to her race and socioeconomic status. Despite Ma Taffy’s growing power of perception, she did not know Gina was pregnant with Kaia at 15 years old until she went into labor.
Gina woke from a nightmare when her water broke. She thought Ma Taffy was there but realized she was still dreaming. When she woke up in earnest, she gave birth silently and alone, determined not to wake anyone up. Ma Taffy awoke as she smelled the scent of labor and heard Gina walk to the bathroom. She realized that Gina was planning to drown her newborn baby in the toilet. Ma Taffy scolded her, shouting insults at her, and then explained that she didn’t understand why Gina had closed off from her. Ma Taffy and Gina cried before soothing the baby to sleep.
Part 3, Prologue-Chapter 21 Analysis
The autoclaps becomes a significant term in these chapters as narrative tension builds. For the first time in the narrative, the narrator defines autoclaps: “the collapse of the heart; a small apocalypse; the afterclap” (159). The “small apocalypse” has been building throughout the first two sections of the novel, but in the final collection of chapters, it bursts open, like the symbol of the smell of the overripe jackfruit that permeates Augustown and foreshadows the chaos and suffering to come. The tension is building to a frenetic place: Soft-Paw has moved the guns, the bobo shantis have marched to the school, and Sister Gilzene has died.
However, amid this chaos, the narrative changes location and shifts its focus to the Garricks in Beverly Hills, highlighting the economic inequities that divide Augustown and neighboring communities. Mrs. Garrick, or Mrs. G, appears in Mr. Saint-Josephs’s memories, but she finally appears on the page as a more rounded character in these chapters. She is the wife of a wealthy man, and though she works at the elementary school for the children of Augustown, she is not earnestly a part of their community. There is a clear divide between the Garricks on the subject of Augustown; Mrs. G wants to teach there, but Mr. Garrick feels her teaching at a school in an area like Augustown damages his social standing by association. Mrs. G wants to make a difference but finds her administrative work unfulfilling, though her higher position in the school appeases Mr. Garrick. Though both the Garricks are part of the system of Babylon, Mrs. G seeks to distance herself from it, while Mr. Garrick wants to uphold the inequality that benefits him.
Mrs. G and Gina’s relationship reveals the underlying complexities of race, privilege, and perception within the narrative. Mrs. G meets Gina, who goes by Miss G, when she mistakes her for an applicant for her housekeeping role. Because of her assumptions about Gina’s racial and socioeconomic background, Mrs. G offers her the job, and at Gina’s request, teaches her the O-level subjects. Their relationship plays into the trope of the white savior narrative, in which a white person “rescues” a person of color from their less fortunate circumstances. Gina, however, did not come to look for a job and is smart enough to breeze through the O-level subjects. This disparity between Mrs. G’s perception and the reality of Gina shows how, even though Mrs. G wants to help Augustown, her worldview is still informed by her white background and her participation in the system of Babylon.
These chapters also reveal the circumstances of Kaia’s birth and illuminate the relationship between Gina and Ma Taffy. Gina was only 15 when she got pregnant and hid it from Ma Taffy, creating a rift between the two women. Ma Taffy’s hurt is evident when she tells Gina, “You never do that before, you know. You never close yourself off from me. Not like that” (193). Gina is Ma Taffy’s favorite of her nieces, so she feels this betrayal more deeply. Gina’s hidden pregnancy is both a betrayal of the close bond between the two women and a betrayal of Ma Taffy’s hopes for Gina’s future. The narrator states, “Ma Taffy began to hope […] that she would thrive as well. She hoped that this little girl would be the one to know and understand Babylon from the inside out, and that one day she would be able to rise over it all” (190). Ma Taffy’s hope for Gina is more than just making a life for herself in Augustown; she wants Gina to rise, an image that will become significant in the final chapters as Gina’s body rises. The final betrayal is Gina’s near murder of Kaia, which Ma Taffy stops and interrupts. This is the inverse of the expected mother-baby relationship, an inverse that will haunt Gina in the coming chapters.
