# data[].attributes.body
“Approaching along the shore of the Detroit River, Lefty and Desdemona watched their new home take shape” (81).

# data[].attributes.body
“As part of the makeover, the YWCA ladies had cut off Desdemona’s immigrant braids” (82).

# data[].attributes.headline
Lefty and Desdemona tell Sourmelina their secret

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Lefty and Desdemona tell Sourmelina their secret

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“My grandparents had every reason to believe that Sourmelina would keep their secret. She’d come to America with a secret of her own, a secret the would be guarded by our family until Sourmelina died in 1979” (85-86).

# data[].attributes.headline
Lefty gets a job at an automobile factory  

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Lefty gets a job at an automobile factory  

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“On the factory floor, my grandfather was trained for his job in seventeen minutes” (95).

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“He says, in English, ‘Hello, sweetheart.’ The new country and its language have helped to push the past a little further behind” (99).

# data[].attributes.headline
Desdemona and Sourmelina realize they are both pregnant

# data[].attributes.subject
Desdemona and Sourmelina realize they are both pregnant

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“Desdemona looked into her husband’s eyes. But it was Sourmelina who explained it all. ‘Your wife and I?’ she said in plain English. ‘We’re both knocked up’” (105).

# data[].attributes.headline
Lefty loses his job at the factory and starts helping Jimmy with his illegal alcohol business

# data[].attributes.subject
Lefty loses his job at the factory and starts helping Jimmy with his illegal alcohol business

# data[].attributes.body
“So began my grandfather’s life of crime. For the next eight months he worked in Zizmo’s rum-running operation, observing its odd hours, getting up in the middle of the night and having dinner at dawn” (112).

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"Just like ice, lives crack too. Personalities. Identities. Jimmy Zizmo, crouching over the Packard's wheel, had already changed past understanding...Zizmo's front wheels crack through the surface. The Packard, as gracefully as an elephant standing on it's front legs, flips up onto its grille" (125).

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“The nurses held up both children. The boy was named Miltiades after the great English poet. The girl, who would grow up without a father, was named Theodora, after the scandalous empress of Byzantium whom Sourmelina admired. She would later get an American nickname, too” (125).

# data[].attributes.headline
Lefty opens his basement speakeasy, The Zebra Room

# data[].attributes.subject
Lefty opens his basement speakeasy, The Zebra Room

# data[].attributes.body
"From his old connections in the rum-running business he rented a slot machine and ordered a week's supply of beer and whiskey. And on a cold Friday night in February of 1924, he opened for business" (132).

# data[].attributes.body
"On April 27th 1928, Zoe Stephanides was born, a large, healthy girl with the squarish head of her grandmother, a powerful cry, and nothing at all the matter with her" (134).

# data[].attributes.headline
Desdemona goes looking for a job in the black neighborhood of Detroit

# data[].attributes.subject
Desdemona goes looking for a job in the black neighborhood of Detroit

# data[].attributes.body
"And so my grandmother stepped off onto Hastings Street. The streetcar pulled away, as white faces looked back at her, a woman thrown overboard" (142).

# data[].attributes.headline
Desdemona gets a job making silk for the Nation of Islam 

# data[].attributes.subject
Desdemona gets a job making silk for the Nation of Islam 

# data[].attributes.body
" 'Listen up now, little sisters,' Sister Wanda said, and, as one, the girls stopped sewing, crossed hands in their laps and looked up attentively. 'This new lady gonna teach us how to make silk" (148).

# data[].attributes.headline
Desdemona finds herself listening to the Prophet Fard's lectures at her job

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Desdemona finds herself listening to the Prophet Fard's lectures at her job

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"Desdemona argued with the voice. She ridiculed Fard's pronouncements. But as the days passed, my grandmother found herself obediently spreading out silk before the heating vent to cushion her knees. She knelt forward, putting her ear to the grate" (156).

# data[].attributes.body
"Fard Muhammad removes his hat to reveal his face. And the prophet smiles. Surely you've guessed by now. That's right: Jimmy Zizmo" (163).

# data[].attributes.body
"And so it began. He played 'Begin the Beguine' against Tessie's collarbone. He played 'Moonface' against her smooth cheeks...With a secrecy they didn't acknowledge...Tessie allowed Milton to press his clarinet to her skin and fill her body with music" (176).

# data[].attributes.body
"Mikey Aninou just proposed to Tessie! They're engaged!" (180).

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"Why had he joined the Navy? For revenge, for escape. He wanted to get back at Tessie , and he wanted to forget her" (186).

# data[].attributes.headline
Tessie calls off her engagement to Father Mike and marries Milton

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Tessie calls off her engagement to Father Mike and marries Milton

# data[].attributes.body
"My parents were married in June of 1946" (197).

# data[].attributes.body
"And in March of 1954, as my father weighed his future, Chapter Eleven, with a little farewell wave to me, raised his arms and travelled down the waterslide into the world" (200).

# data[].attributes.headline
Lefty gambles away all their money from the new restaurant

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Lefty gambles away all their money from the new restaurant

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"The teller showed him his balance: $13.26...He suddenly felt dizzy. The gambling fever he'd had for twenty-six months broke" (205).

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"As sperm meets egg, I feel a jolt. There's a loud sound, a sonic boom as my world cracks. I feel myself shift, already losing bits of my prenatal omniscience, tumbling toward the blank slate of personhood" (211).