[11] She has also discussed how Black artists have been creative with their biographies as a means "of pleasure and survival".
[12] The real names include "1920s aesthete and socialite Stephen Tennant and the Bright Young Things", and Roberte Horth, an early 20th century writer from French Guiana who lived in Paris.
[14] While sifting through an uncatalogued collection of photographs in the National Portrait Gallery archive, Mathilda encounters Hermia Druitt, a forgotten Black Scottish poet (invented by von Reinhold).
"[13] In the novel, decadence, glamour or luxury are forms of "resistance [...] an opposition to the Whiteness that has always told Black people that they are too ornamented",[14][6][10] with the protagonists identifying how "this prejudice has its roots in colonialist contempt for African culture".
[15] In 2021, von Reinhard contributed an essay, 'The Scintillations Of Black Carnelian Grotto (the Individual) And Theire Journey To Black Carnelian Grotto (the Place)', to Peggy Ahwesh Vision Machines, a study of US artist and filmmaker Peggy Ahwesh.