Music is a recurring motif in the memoir. Natasha revisits her memories of her mother and key moments in Gwen’s life through the songs that her mother loved. Peregrinations into musical memory begin with the Temptations’s “Just my Imagination.” Natasha recalls her mother singing the song around the time that the two of them relocated to Atlanta after her parents’ divorce. Atlanta, unlike Gulfport, was progressive and heralded a new era for Black prosperity in the post-Civil Rights era. Gwen, Natasha suggests, may have been imagining new possibilities for herself, her daughter, and her people, which the song encapsulated.

After Joel enters their lives, Trethewey recalls listening to a Curtis Mayfield A-track with him in his car. Songs like “Freddy’s Dead” and “Superfly” correlate with the increasingly menacing persona that Joel begins to take on. Music also helps Natasha recall moments of joy, such as when her mother took center stage and danced to the Jackson 5’s “Dancing Machine” at the home of her neighbors, the Dunns, whose five sons reminded Natasha of the Jackson 5.

Gwen’s record collection, which Natasha perused regularly as a girl, and which she later had to collect at her mother’s apartment after Gwen’s death, included albums from Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, Al Green, the Temptations, and Donny Hathaway.