Meet the Cast
Son
Eloe Forever!Son has spent a whole lot of his life roaming around and hasn't found a place that he feels like he belongs… except for in his hometown of Eloe, that is. But Son had to leave Eloe af...
Jade
Identity CrisisJadine is a twenty-five year-old black woman who has been educated at the Sorbonne, a fancy French university. Her rich patron Valerian paid for her education, while her aunt and unc...
Margaret Street
Child BrideMargaret Street is very anxious about spending all of her time in Valerian's Caribbean house. Sure, it might sound like paradise, but the truth is that the house is on a pretty deserted...
Valerian Street
An Honest ManAt heart, Valerian is a guy who just wants to be left alone to do his own thing. He loves his son Michael, but is more than willing to leave the kid alone if it means letting the boy s...
Ondine Childs
Ondine is Valerian's cook, and she and Sydney (the butler) are married. She has spent many years working hard, and, as we find out from the narrator, time has begun to catch up with her: "She didn'...
Sydney Childs
Sydney identifies himself as a very proud black man. He has no time for hoodlums like Son and basically thinks that he is the most dignified black man in the world. Or in the narrator's words, "He...
Thérèse (Mary)
Thérèse is an elderly Caribbean woman who does laundry for Valerian Street. She is the aunt of Gideon or "Yardman" as the wealthy Street family likes to call him. The Streets call her "Mary" beca...
Gideon (Yardman)
Gideon spends most of this book being called "Yardman" because he's the dude who takes cares of the grounds of Valerian Street's Caribbean vacation house and no one has ever bothered to learn his n...