Concrete Rose

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-16

Part 2, Chapters 17-19

Part 3, Chapters 20-25

Part 3, Chapter 26-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Quiz

Part 2, Chapters 17-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Growth”

Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary

The day before Thanksgiving, Mav calls Lisa, who is putting off telling her family about the pregnancy. Mav tells her not to worry, as the whole thing will be over soon. There’s a long pause, and then Lisa tells Mav that she wants to keep the baby. She is determined not to let it ruin her life and will still go to college on an academic scholarship. Mav feels like his life is over. He’s silent for too long, and Lisa angrily hangs up on him.

Ma and Mav drive up to Evergreen Prison with Seven. Pops lights up when he sees his grandson. He holds Seven on his lap as the group makes conversation, which is lighthearted until Ma tells Pops that Mav has some news to share. Squaring his shoulders, Mav tells Pops that Lisa is pregnant. Unlike last time, Pops is angry. He blames Ma for not being home to supervise Mav, while she blames him for being absent. Ma takes Seven to the other side of the room, leaving Mav and Pops alone to talk.

Pops reminds Mav of the meaning of his name and asks why Mav wasn’t thinking when he impregnated Lisa. Mav counters that Pops was stupid to hide drugs in the family home. Pops says that he was just “being a man and taking care of [his] family” (205). Their fight escalates until Mav storms out, shouting that he “hasn’t had a father since [he] was eight” due to Pops’s imprisonment (207). Retrieving his pager from the car, Mav sees a page from an unknown number. He calls back from the pay phone in the parking lot and reaches Lisa. She’s calling from Ms. Rosalie’s house, where she is staying because her mother has kicked her out.

Ma drops Mav off at Ms. Rosalie’s, where Lisa has accepted a spot in Tammy’s sister’s old room. Mav suggests she stay with him, because she’s his girl. Lisa asks if he understands that her pregnancy doesn’t mean they’re together again. She is still upset about Mav’s lack of support over the phone, and she doesn’t “want [her] baby to have a gangbanger for a father” (210). Mav points out that he’s working a clean job now, but when Lisa asks what his plans are beyond working for Mr. Wyatt, he can’t come up with an answer. Mav thinks that Lisa’s privilege means she can’t possibly understand his life, but Lisa retorts that she and her baby deserve better than Mav. Stung, Mav leaves.

Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary

Thanksgiving used to be Mav’s favorite holiday before Dre died. Now everything is different. The family is gathered at Ma’s house for dinner, but everyone is subdued. King shows up, and to Mav’s shock, Iesha is with him and acting like a girlfriend. Ma pulls Iesha aside and lectures her for never checking in on her son. Iesha can barely look Ma or Mav in the eyes. She agrees to sign over full custody of her son to Mav with weekly visitation rights and legally change his name to Seven.

At dinner, Ma tells Iesha to take care of Seven so Mav can grab a plate and relax. The table is full, so he heads to the front porch where he and Dre used to eat together. King comes out of the house and sits beside him. Mav asks why King didn’t tell him where Iesha was, and why he brought her to the house when he knows she hasn’t been around for her son. King fires back that he hasn’t had the chance to say anything because Mav never hangs out with him or the gang any more.

A car pulls up and a man jumps out. It’s Lisa’s brother, Carlos, who runs up to Mav and punches him before shoving him off the steps and brutally kicking him. It takes King and three of Ma’s cousins to pull Carlos away. Carlos shouts that Mav is a son of a bitch who ruined Lisa’s life and climbs back into his car, speeding off.

Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary

Four days after the attack, Mav is back at school, catching up on the latest developments from the streets. Shawn was arrested on Thanksgiving for driving a stolen car. In his absence, the other big homies are vying for control of the gang. Rico says that Shawn and Dre were “the only big homies who really cared” (228) about the li’l homies, but Junie reassures him that they will be all right if they all stick together. The conversation moves on to prom. Rico and Junie are planning to rent limos and fancy tuxedos with their drug money. Mav feels distant from them, and wonders how different his life would be if he were still dealing. As the trio walks into history class, Mav suddenly realizes that he forgot to study for the day’s exam.

After school, Mav takes the bus downtown to meet Lisa at a prenatal appointment. Lisa’s doctor’s office is located in an upscale skyscraper, nothing like the free clinic. In the waiting room, Carlos is sitting with Lisa. He and Mav exchange a few heated words before a nurse calls Lisa’s name. Looking up, Mav realizes that the nurse is Moe. As Moe sets Lisa up in an exam room, Mav asks why she hasn’t come by lately. Moe answers that she “didn’t wanna cause any problems” and leaves hurriedly (232). Lisa’s doctor, Dr. Byrd, is a Black woman. In fact, to Mav’s surprise, everyone he’s seen in the office is Black. Dr. Byrd gives Lisa a pelvic exam and an ultrasound. The sound of the baby’s heartbeat fills the room, and Mav feels an indescribable joy. Dr. Byrd tells Lisa that her baby is due in mid-July, and everything is good so far.

At the billing desk, there is only a 20-dollar co-pay left after Lisa’s insurance. Mav opens his wallet to find he’s completely out of cash. Carlos comes over and shoves Mav aside to pay the bill himself, asking Mav how he plans to care for Lisa’s baby. Mav is humiliated. He now has Lisa, Seven, and an unborn child depending on him, and it’s clear that he can’t support them all on his paycheck from Mr. Wyatt. Feeling defeated, he decides to return to dealing.

Part 2, Chapters 17-19 Analysis

Lisa’s decision to keep her baby resurfaces the class divide between her and Mav. Lisa is unwilling to allow Mav back into her and her baby’s lives because she thinks of him as “gangbanger.” Even though Mav has a steady job now, Lisa is upset that he does not have a concrete plan for his future. Her anger with Mav over his goals shows that her upbringing makes it hard for her to understand just how limiting the level of poverty that Mav lives in can be. On the other hand, her constant pushing on the subject of plans and goals indicates that she believes in Mav’s potential to thrive outside of the gang if he puts in the work.

Mav may be too much of a “gangbanger” for Lisa, but to his friends, he’s not enough of one. The distance between him, King, Junie, and Rico is growing as he spends less and less time with them, and without the money that dealing brought in he can’t afford to participate in normal teenage experiences like prom. In the absence of the things that once bonded them, like partying and time spent within the gang, Mav don’t seem to have enough in common with his friends to maintain their former closeness.

Mav’s fight with Pops shows a crack in Mav’s admiration of his father. He has spent a good part of the book trying to prove himself worthy of Pops’s name, but during their fight Mav vents his anger at Pops for the choices that caused him to miss out on most of Mav’s life. Pops’s defense that he was doing what a man should by providing for his family is incredibly similar to lines that Mav has used in the past to justify harmful behavior. This similarity suggests that Mav’s toxic perception of masculinity was not formed in a vacuum but at least in part learned from his father. Although the fight is painful, it’s a significant moment for Mav because he is stepping away from his clouded desire to live up to his father’s name. He’s spent a long time chasing his father’s legacy without considering whether being just like Pops is actually a good thing, but he is beginning to think critically about his father’s life.

The theme of poverty and its constricting effect on personal autonomy is once again raised by Mav’s decision to go back to dealing. It’s a frustrating moment, as he seems to be throwing away all of the progress he’s made toward a safer lifestyle, but he genuinely feels that he has no choice. In contrast to the beginning of the book, when Mav dealt to help with bills and buy designer clothes, he is now returning to the drug game to support his family. Although Mav has just fought with his father, his rationale for getting back into dealing calls back to what Pops said during the prison visit about needing to provide for his family, which somewhat undermines Mav’s earlier defiance.