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Queen is Booker’s aunt. She is the only one who takes his grief seriously after Adam’s murder. She is a woman with fire-red hair who has had many husbands. Queen lives in Whiskey, California, where Booker goes to live after leaving Bride. While the novel portrays Queen as gracious and benevolent, she also has her own demons. In particular, when Queen’s daughter Hannah was a child, she told Queen that her father was molesting her. Queen sided with Hannah’s father—something Queen now regrets—and her choice damaged her relationship with Hannah beyond repair.
Queen Quotes in God Help the Child
The God Help the Child quotes below are all either spoken by Queen or refer to Queen. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 4, Chapter 2 Quotes
“I’m not sure I should, now.” Bride shook her head. She had counted on her looks for so long—how well her beauty worked. She had not known its shallowness or her own cowardice—the vital lesson Sweetness taught and nailed to her spine to curve it.
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They will blow it, she thought. Each will cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow—some long-ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves. And each one will rewrite the story forever, knowing the plot, guessing the theme, inventing its meaning and dismissing its origin. What waste.
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Queen Character Timeline in God Help the Child
The timeline below shows where the character Queen appears in God Help the Child. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 3
...funeral, the crowds only make Booker feel lonelier. In the days after, only an aunt, Queen, traveled from California to attend Adam’s funeral, seems to understand Booker’s pain and tries to...
(full context)
Part 4, Chapter 2
The woman says her name is Queen. She says that Bride looks hungry, and she proceeds to feed her thick soup. While...
(full context)
Queen comes to Booker’s house and sees Bride asleep. She helps Booker move Bride from the...
(full context)
...childhood, she feels “newly born.” She tells Booker that she saw the writings he sent Queen. Booker says maybe he sent them because he liked them too much to throw away...
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By the time Booker and Bride get to Queen’s house, a crowd has already gathered. Smoke billows from the windows as flame consumes the...
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Booker and Bride regularly visit and care for Queen in the hospital. In the cafeteria at breakfast, Booker asks Bride about her job. “I...
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Queen seems to be making a steady recovery, but then her blood count drops, and her...
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