Boy Novak, a young white girl, is born to an abusive father who works as an exterminator and whom she refers to as the rat catcher.

In Flax Hill, Boy stumbles across a tenement house and begins to go on double dates with one of the other tenants who introduces her to her boyfriend's business partner, a jewellery designer and widower called Arturo Whitman.

He also reveals that his first wife Julia was descended from white-passing African-Americans, and they were both relieved when Snow was born with light skin.

Boy grows increasingly frustrated over the different ways in which the family and the town react to Bird and becomes jealous of Snow.

Instead, Boy asks Clara to take Snow for what she claims is a short visit, in reality planning to have her stay indefinitely.

Thirteen years later, in 1968, Bird grows up as the only daughter in the Whitman family, while her father visits Snow twice a month.

Bird discovers a series of letters Snow wrote to her mother in which she begs to be able to come home and fails to understand what she might have done to upset Boy.

After Mia confronted Frank about his former identity she told him to tell Boy the truth of his origins before the article was published.

[7] The New York Times praised the book for its prose and themes, calling it a "cautionary tale on post-race ideology, racial limbos and the politics of passing.