Gerard is George and Inez’s son. To his parents’ disappointment, he lets the vices he finds in Harlem get the better of him: he starts doing drugs and stealing as a teenager, and then he moves to Miami to become a full-time drug dealer. Eventually, his addiction ruins his health. After he visits his dying father, who’s in a coma after a nasty fall, Gerard becomes so distraught that he stops going to his own medical appointments and dies within a matter of days. His fate, like his sister Sonya’s, demonstrates how the poverty and violence in Northern Black neighborhoods often undermined migrants’ hopes that their children would have better opportunities and lives than they did.
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Gerard Starling Character Timeline in The Warmth of Other Suns
The timeline below shows where the character Gerard Starling appears in The Warmth of Other Suns. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part Four: The River Keeps Running
...demands that she start paying rent. When Pat reports that George and Inez’s 12-year-old son, Gerard, is doing drugs with his friends, Inez kicks her out of the house. Still, once...
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Part Five: Losses
...York, 1978. Inez lives in a world of heartbreak: she has few friends, her son Gerard struggles with addiction, and George has a second family. Above all, she isn’t sure if...
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Part Five: More North and West Than South
...realize what was happening until it was too late. To his great disappointment, his son Gerard becomes a major drug dealer in Miami, while his daughter Sonya moves back to Eustis....
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Part Five: The Winter of Their Lives
...his head, and ends up in a coma. His niece Pat and his estranged son Gerard visit him. Gerard, who is also on dialysis, breaks down when he sees his father....
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