The short author’s note at the conclusion of The Gold Cadillac provides invaluable context for Taylor’s choice of perspective, setting, and conflict in the novel. As with other novels in Taylor’s body of work, The Gold Cadillac is a fictional account that reflects Taylor’s own memories and family relationships. In particular, Taylor recounts positive family events seen through ’lois’s perspective, such as picnics and caravans with aunts and uncles—as well as a memory of her father bringing home a new Cadillac. While the novel itself involves harrowing experiences of racism, it also supports a counternarrative that depicts the positive ways that Black children are supported and cared for by their community of family and neighbors.