This intense character study focuses on two middle-aged women, Liselle and Selena. Liselle is hosting a dinner party for her husband, Winn, who has just lost an election to be a state legislator in Pennsylvania. Liselle, a Black woman, is recollecting comments made by her outspoken mother, Verity, about how Liselle lives the life of a rich, privileged woman, with a big house, white husband, and housemaid. Liselle is shocked to learn that her husband is under investigation by the FBI. While dealing with these realities, she remembers her life as a student at Bryn Mawr College, where she was in a relationship with Selena, another Black woman. While there, the two were open about their love and their fierce determination to live their lives on their own terms.

Selena, plagued by hyper-anxiety about all of the world's ills, has been in-and-out of mental hospitals in the years since she's seen Liselle. After a chance meeting in a grocery store, the two end up thinking about each other and the book chronicles their lives leading up to a defining moment and the issues that affect them, including racism, sexuality, and love/marriage.

I always enjoy a book that is laser-focused on a strong character, and while this one is that in regards to Liselle, I was interested but not gripped by her story. As her dinner party progresses, she starts questioning her life choices, especially her marriage to a man that she's not sure she truly knows and the lost love she regrets. Her backstory reveals a woman who lived an unabashed lesbian lifestyle, so to see her so settled in a life she's not fully comfortable with, is a shock. Selena's storyline is not as detailed, yet the despair that plagues her is relatable. When in college and in a relationship with Liselle, Selena wasn't as outspoken as Liselle, but seemed to be able to keep some of her anxiety at bay by feeling happy in love. I still felt like her story wasn't as detailed as it needed to be for the reader to become completely immersed in her rebirth.

A short 208 pages, this novel felt unfinished to me. There are allusions to the work of poet Audre Lord (the Afrekete in the title) and similar story beats to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. I did enjoy this look at two complex, middle-aged women who reassessed their lives and their relationship with each other, but I was left wanting more background on Selena and more closure at the end.