In Chapter 1, the protagonist and narrator, Gifty, an American woman of Ghanaian descent, says that “whenever I think of my mother, I picture a queen-sized bed with her lying in it” (3). This is because her mother spent a great deal of time during Gifty’s life in bed, depressed. The first time this happened was when Gifty was a girl. The second time was when she was a graduate student.

Gifty was sent to Ghana, her mother’s country of origin, when she was 11, while her mother recovered. Gifty describes an incident that happened when she was in Ghana, where her auntie, with whom she was staying, pointed out a “crazy” person in the street.

The second period in her life when she sees her mother depressed in bed, Gifty is working as a PhD student in neurobiology at Stanford University, where she is doing research into addiction by experimenting on mice. Pastor John, the pastor from her hometown in Alabama, calls Gifty to say that her mother has not been attending church and is likely having another depressive episode. Gifty therefore asks her mother to stay with her. Telling this story now, Gifty recalls how thin and gaunt her mother was when she picked her up at the airport and how they drove to her apartment in near total silence.