Black Girls Must Die Exhausted: A Novel

Fighting Los Angeles traffic on the way to her job as a television journalist, 33-year-old Tabitha Walker (Tabby) reflects on the news that she has premature ovarian failure. Unless Tabby conceives in the next six months, she will likely never be able to achieve a pregnancy with her own eggs. Tabby feels that the diagnosis is unfair; she has accomplished all that is expected of her—college, career, financial stability, and respectable romantic prospects—only to feel like her body is failing her. She is currently up for a promotion and is enjoying the slow burn of her loving relationship with Marc, her boyfriend. Tabby wants children and is unwilling to forfeit this dream.

Tabby applies makeup while sitting at red lights. Flustered by her multitasking, Tabby misses her turn and must detour through her childhood neighborhood. She thinks of her mother, who regularly pressures Tabby to get married and have children. Tabby remembers her parents’ tumultuous divorce, when her father left the family for another woman, Diane, and their child. The hurt of this betrayal was complicated by the fact that Diane is white, while Tabby, her mother, and her father are Black. Tabby’s paternal grandmother,