The novel advocates the relevance of old-school storytelling, the oral tradition that was in large part responsible for shaping the African American culture during the slavery era when empowering enslaved people were legally barred from reading and writing.

Benny was an English major. She describes the oddity of her field, studying the dilemmas of made-up people doing made-up things. She recalls that books were a consolation and refuge as she was growing up in a dysfunctional home, shuttled between homes of feuding parents and forced to move multiple times because of her mother’s airline job. Stories, she learned early on, defy feelings of alienation and isolation.

Benny understands her first day in the classroom that she is up against younger generation largely indifferent to the potential power of stories. That reality is complicated by students who face every day the relentless grind of poverty and the lack of authentic expectations: “In today’s world of fractured families, readily available cable TV entertainment and video games that can be plugged into home television sets for hours […] stories are in danger of fading into the maelstrom of the modern era” (249). Granny T.’s moving performance in Benny’s classroom, through her costuming and her vivid delivery, shows how stories can come alive.