# Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison - Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Live through the joy and anguish of motherhood in uncertain times.

How can you create life when you know about all the injustice it will face?

This is one of the questions that plagues the unnamed narrator of Blue Hour, Tiffany Clarke Harrison’s prize-winning debut novel. 

After years of struggling with infertility, the narrator – a gifted yet conflicted multiracial photographer – finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. As she grapples with ambivalence about bringing new life into a fractured America scarred by racism and police brutality, a profound incident with one of her students forces her to confront buried traumas.

This Blink to Blue Hour takes us on an emotional journey of what it means to be a mother. It offers an intimate look at the themes of identity, love, loss, and hope amid the chaos of present-day America.

The story contains depictions of violence and death, so please proceed with care.

Children

The story begins with our unnamed narrator visiting her therapist. She’s there for good reason – she recently lost her baby due to a miscarriage.

In flashbacks, we learn about the narrator’s life and background. She lives in New York with her husband, Asher, and works as a photographer and photography teacher. 

As a Black, Haitian, and Japanese woman, she’s struggled with her identity and appearance since she was young. In school, her Black peers taunted her for “talking white,” and she never felt like she fully belonged.

In college, she lost her parents and younger sister in a tragic accident – leaving only her and her now estranged older sister, Viola. 

We also learn that she met her husband, Asher, a Jewish store owner, when she photographed him for a magazine profile. Despite their different backgrounds, the beginnings of their love story felt magical. They quickly married, and even though she never considered herself a family person, the narrator decided to try for a baby with her husband.

But tragedy struck once more. After only 10 weeks, the narrator delivered a stillborn baby on her bathroom floor. She tells her therapist that this has left her feeling “dismembered.”

In the aftermath of this loss, her feelings about motherhood grow more ambivalent than ever. She tells her therapist she never wanted kids – but deep down knows that she longs for a baby with Asher.

This hesitance deepens against the backdrop of ongoing police brutality against Black Americans, like the recent murder of a man at a grocery store. Soon, tragedy hits close to home.

One of her young photography students, gifted 10-year-old Noah, is shot in the back by the police while running errands for his mother. The narrator is shocked when she hears the story on the news. And when she attends a protest for Noah, she sees a female protestor clubbed viciously by police. The racial violence colors everything, making raising a Black child seem impossible.

ANALYSIS

The first part of the novel introduces us to our conflicted protagonist. She tells of her experience in a fragmented style, recounting short episodes of her everyday life, fond memories, and resurfacing trauma. 

As a young multiracial woman in New York, she’s not only struggling with her own identity and loss, but with the unforgiving racialized climate of the times. The ongoing police brutality against Black Americans forms the solemn backdrop of her personal struggles with infertility. 

On one side, she desperately longs to be a mother and build a family with her beloved husband, Asher. On the other side, she feels betrayed by her body and undeserving of a family after the tragic loss of her own. On top of all that, she grapples with what it means to raise a child of color when racial violence is a daily occurrence.

Past

Despite ongoing hesitancy, our narrator continues IVF treatments. Her optimistic husband still desperately wants a child. But as the unspoken things between them accumulate, tensions grow. 

In more flashbacks, we learn that the narrator used to be jealous of her beautiful younger sister, Maya. As a teen, she once pushed Maya in a fit of envy, cracking her tooth. She still feels guilty about this, especially after her family’s fatal car crash. 

We learn that this crash happened after her parents and Maya drove to pick up the college-aged narrator from jail after a party. A truck driver asleep at the wheel plowed into them. Immediately after the incident, the narrator’s older sister, Viola, blamed her for the deaths. The sisters each coped differently, drifting further and further apart. Viola found religion and started a family in the rural South. 

The narrator spent her college years having reckless sex, vowing to forsake marriage and kids. Instead, she immersed herself in photography. But at 28, she met her husband – the first man since her father to tell her “I love you.” Although she couldn't reciprocate at first, meeting Asher changed her. Later, she made him a video love letter.

In the present, the narrator has begun to secretly visit her injured student, Noah, in the hospital, pretending to be a cousin. After one of these visits, she decides to start a documentary project about families of Black children shot by police. 

Her actress friend Erika promises to provide contacts for the project, hooking her up with a writer. The narrator is grateful but feels some residual guilt about having had a college affair with Erika’s husband, Jameson. 

At home, Asher worries the stress of the project will negatively affect the IVF treatments. Exhausted by grief, the couple has a big fight that ends with Asher storming out.

Alone at home, the narrator takes another pregnancy test. It’s positive. But at six weeks, she’s too worried to tell Asher anything yet. She calls her sister Viola, but can’t bring herself to share her true experience.

ANALYSIS

As the reluctant narrator continues her fertility treatments, we learn more about the details of her past trauma. The car crash that killed her parents and younger sister happened after they got her out of adolescent trouble. A part of her still believes that her reckless behavior indirectly caused their death; in the immediate aftermath of the accident, her sister Viola also blamed her. As a result, the sisters have drifted apart. The narrator tries to connect, but still finds herself unable to be truly authentic. 

She secretly fears that her fertility struggles are some form of karmic punishment for her past transgressions. On top of that, the guilt over her family’s death makes her feel undeserving of a family of her own. This manifests in hiding her pregnancy from her yearning husband – she can’t bear to fully hope when she feels fated to lose everything again.

Blue hour

In a bittersweet memory, our narrator recalls shy Noah proudly sharing a photo he took of a girl jumping rope. Noah has now been released from the hospital, but he’s not in the clear. The doctors couldn’t remove one of the bullets in his chest, which might migrate at any moment and kill him.

Meanwhile, Asher apologizes to the narrator. Although she’s 16 weeks pregnant now, she still hasn’t revealed her pregnancy to her husband. She vows to tell him after his mother’s Hanukkah party.

But on the drive home from the party, a car crashes into their cab. Though no one gets badly injured, the impact makes the narrator instinctively cradle her belly. This makes Asher realize she's pregnant. Naturally, he’s upset she didn’t tell him. 

The shock of the accident proves too much for the narrator’s body. At just 18 weeks, her water breaks – she knows she’s about to have another miscarriage. In her husband’s arms, she delivers their stillborn baby, Ellis, in the tub. 

Amid renewed grief and trauma, the narrator’s and Asher’s relationship deteriorates further. They barely talk, and the narrator grows suspicious of his relationship with his assistant, Jill. When she confronts him about it, he confesses that Jill tried to kiss him, but he refused.

The narrator’s depression deepens. Her therapist prescribes sedatives. A healer sells her some crystals. In her debilitated state, the narrator abandons her documentary project.

One afternoon when she goes to the cornershop, she runs into Noah, who’s out without his parent’s permission. They walk together for a while, eat candy, and talk about the “blue hour” – the hours before dusk that lend a magical light to photos. 

After this bittersweet encounter, the narrator sinks into an even darker depression. Her husband finally intervenes, calling her estranged sister Viola to come care for her. 

ANALYSIS 

After a second devastating miscarriage, the narrator’s fears and doubts seem confirmed. She feels rejected by her body, her husband, and the world. As she slides into a deep depression, the already strained relationship with her husband suffers further. Unable to confront her emotions, the narrator finds it easier to pull away from the people that love her rather than seek their comfort. 

It’s only when her older sister Viola shows up at her door that she’s shaken out of her stupor. Despite their struggles, husband Asher still cares about her a lot, and has called Viola for help. This gesture of love plants a seed of hope: the narrator is not alone in her suffering.

Motherhood

Viola cares for the narrator for several weeks. The narrator recalls some of their joint memories. She remembers when Viola drove her to get an abortion in college – even though it went against her religious beliefs. 

The narrator takes her sister to her darkroom to show her some photos. They start fighting in the way siblings do. Viola accuses the narrator of never reaching out. The narrator accuses her of conspiring with her husband, who she’s sure has told Viola about the miscarriages. But after a few minutes of bickering, the narrator shows her sister a developing photo of the stillborn baby she delivered. Touched by her pain, Viola affirms to the narrator that her experience has already made her a mother.

Emboldened, the narrator prepares to restart her documentary, despite lacking funds. The relationship with Asher also slowly improves again. Mutual understanding, silliness, and joy return to their lives, even as the nation is rattled by further police killings.

After a particularly cruel incident, former lover Jameson offers the narrator a check to continue the work on the documentary. But a little later, his wife Erika finds proof of their college affair in the form of an old nude photo. Angrily, she tells Jameson to withdraw the funding.

Soon, though, the narrator has bigger things to worry about: a new pregnancy. This time, she immediately tells her husband about it. Twenty weeks in, the baby appears strong and healthy. 

Eventually, she delivers her baby girl, Bijou. The new family experiences some rare moments of deep bliss. The narrator even finds the strength to stand up to her husband’s disapproving mother. And she has begun rebuilding the bond with Viola. Erika and Jameson come back around too, securing full funding for the documentary.

Now the narrator can start filming the documentary. Her first case will be particularly close to her heart: she’ll interview Noah’s mother. The bullet in his chest has migrated, and he’s back in the hospital, unresponsive. 

After they finish filming at Noah’s house, his mother leads the narrator to his room. She takes a photo of her with Noah’s old camera, then asks the narrator for her name. Just as the narrator is about to reveal it, the novel ends. 

ANALYSIS

The final part of the story brings redemption through the power of love – romantic, familial, and self-love. After hitting her low point, the narrator realizes not only that she deserves a happy family, but that she’s had one all along. There’s her loving husband, Asher; her neglected sister, Viola; and many supportive friends. When it matters most, these people show up to share her grief and comfort her. Finally, the narrator learns to accept this love. 

She also finds solace in her creativity, using the documentary as a way to process her feelings about racial injustice. By finding her voice as an artist and mother, embracing her full identity, and opening herself to love, she achieves a hard-won sense of belonging and joy.

The idea that she’s finally found herself is crystallized at the end of the novel, with the narrator on the cusp of revealing her name.

Final summary

This emotional story follows a gifted, multiracial woman's journey to motherhood through lingering trauma, loss, and racial violence. The narrator is hesitant to have a mixed-race child in a fractured America – and her fears seem confirmed when one of her young photography students is shot by the police. 

After a second miscarriage, she falls into a deep depression. But eventually, she’s able to rebuild family bonds, channel her pain into art, and let love into her life again. When she unexpectedly gets pregnant for a third time, she’s able to move past her self-doubt to embrace her role as a mother.