Red at the Bone

Melody is at the center of the narrative. Although the text is split between five protagonists, it is Melody who connects them all. Born to two teenagers, her conception initially marks a threat to social status since her mother Iris and father Aubrey are from very different backgrounds. Though her birth forever links her parents, it is not enough to keep them together. Her mother’s decision to go away to college leaves Melody with a sense of abandonment, damaging her relationship to her mother forever. By the time of her 16th birthday, Melody barely speaks to her mother and only refers to her as Iris. She was raised by her father and grandparents, giving her a powerful connection to them while further hindering her ability to have a healthy relationship with Iris.

The novel is, on the surface, positioned as a bildungsroman by having the narrative surround the day of Melody’s ceremony. Melody herself sees this as her coming of age: “the girlhood of my life now over” (17). However, Woodson’s approach to Melody—and indeed the entire novel’s structure of moving back and forth in time—refuses to provide a neat tale of Melody’s spiritual education. Rather, Melody’s personhood is left with room for self-determination, the text ending as she is still discovering herself, little having yet been solved.