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52 pages 1 hour read

White Smoke

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021

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Themes

Community Memory and Its Generational Impact

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of addiction, substance use, racism, graphic violence, sexual violence, and mental illness. 

Maplewood is a neighborhood with secrets and strife that have permanently affected its residents’ lives. Harsh convictions, unfair treatment, and untruthful messaging play a role in the complex history of the area and still continually impact its families, including members of the younger generations. As a teen who recently relocated to Maplewood, Marigold begins to see the community’s collective memory and the impacts of trauma across generations.

Yusef and Erika have fond memories of community gatherings at the beach near the river, and they share these recollections with Marigold. Family gatherings are difficult now, however, because of the Sterling Laws. Passed under the governorship of Mr. Sterling’s brother, the Sterling Laws called for harsh penalties for drug possession and resulted in the imprisonment of many people in Maplewood including Yusef’s father in “Big Ville.” Erika’s family members are also in this for-profit prison; she lives with her grandmother, the only remaining relative unaffected by these laws. The prison sentences remain in place even after the laws loosened. The loss of family members to these laws is a painful chapter in the community’s memory and impacts Yusef’s and Erika’s generation.

“Devil’s Night” is also part of Maplewood’s collective community memory. While recent Halloweens have involved more minor occurrences like burning trash cans, Devil’s Night used to involve burning abandoned houses to make squatters and drug addicts who sheltered in them flee. Erika reveals to Marigold that people died in these fires and that authorities like police and firefighters promote the activity instead of preventing it. Later, Yusef tells Marigold the whole truth about Devil’s Night: It began when a mob of neighbors intentionally tried to hurt Jon Jon Peoples after community children accused him of molestation. The house fire supposedly killed Jon Jon and his mother, Carmen (Ms. Suga). This started a dangerous tradition of more “riots” and burnings on Halloween. Now, no one trick-or-treats or celebrates Halloween in Maplewood.

Marigold is horrified when she understands the role these memories play on the psyche of the neighborhood and its younger generations, specifically Yusef and Erika. With Tamara’s help, she sees Instagram footage of Devil’s Nights. As someone who recently moved to the neighborhood, Marigold has distance from these illicit activities and bad memories; despite this distance, she still gains perspective on Maplewood’s unfair laws, racially motivated treatment, and dishonest instigation of violence by the Sterling Foundation’s band of developers and mobsters. Marigold makes it her mission in the novel’s denouement to expose this corruption and aid Maplewood’s generations in healing through truth and justice.

Using the Horror Lens to Explore and Amplify Societal Issues

Social horror is a popular subgenre that uses the hallmark plot devices of suspense and horror stories to expose prevalent social issues, many of which deal with oppression and prejudice. In White Smoke, the traditional haunted house narrative serves as a framework for a narrative that addresses racism, gentrification, and addiction. Using the horror lens to critically explore and amplify these issues sheds light on their negative impact on families and the cruel ways individuals treat one another.

Racism is an undercurrent throughout White Smoke. Marigold, a Black teen girl, establishes that Maplewood has a significant Black population: “Coming from a small white town, this is the most Black people I’ve ever seen in real life” (21). Later, Marigold learns that the Sterling Laws, which included harsh sentences for drug possession including marijuana, disproportionately impacted Maplewood residents and made those residents’ socioeconomic struggles even worse. Marigold also realizes how strongly the Sterling Foundation represents elitism and privilege when she and her family attend the benefit fundraiser for the Sterling Foundation: “A bunch of white people dressed up in fine threads and heels, the most I’ve seen since the house fire” (139). In these ways, the author highlights a dichotomy between the limited opportunities for Black residents of Maplewood versus the advantages white residents of the rest of Cedarville enjoy.

Establishing this racial division sets the stage for the social issue of gentrification. Developers have been trying to make a profit in Maplewood since Joe Peoples died in a suspicious accident and his wife, Carmen (Ms. Suga), refused to sell the family’s houses. In the time since, however, the investor-funded Sterling Foundation has purchased much of the surrounding property—including Marigold’s house—as residents fell on hard times and had to leave for reasons Mr. Sterling finds amusing: “maybe running away from mortgage or property liens” (120). Marigold later realizes that the Sterling Foundation’s “To the Future” campaign necessitates the demolition of all of Maplewood, and in the climactic scenes, Mr. Sterling rouses the angry mob of neighbors to burn houses using provided wood and gasoline. These examples show an out-of-control gentrification process and how power, wealth, and racist motivations direct those efforts. 

Another social issue amplified through the horror lens in White Smoke is drug addiction. Marigold’s addiction to marijuana drives her to poor choices like taking advantage of Yusef’s generosity with supplies to grow a secret marijuana garden. Also, neighbors discover Marigold’s background and call her out publicly for it on the night of the power outage. Their mob mentality and their judgment shame and terrify her at a time not long after she left a rehabilitation facility for treatment. Their fearsome, looming presence encroaching on her home and family cements the text within the horror genre. Additionally, it brings into focus others’ difficulty in trusting her as a person recovering from addiction. As a result, the social issues of racism, gentrification, and addiction all play a role in this novel’s plot and conflicts.

The Dynamics and Challenges Within Blended Families

Marigold contends with several significant conflicts in the novel besides the possibility of a haunted house and her recovery from addiction. She moves to Cedarville amid a conflict that, while more subtle, is just as trying: her new blended family. In the Anderson-Green family, the opposition between family members and friction over past and present situations highlight the dynamics and challenges of living within blended families, particularly relationships with stepsiblings and new parents.

Piper is the sharpest thorn in Marigold’s side until the climactic events of the novel. Piper not only tattles on Marigold, insisting she is still doing drugs, but she also feels no remorse for lying about Marigold’s behavior, as when she pretends Marigold is asking her for money; this raises the suspicions of her mother and Alec. Piper’s oppositional behavior reaches new heights when she insists that Ms. Suga wants Marigold out of the house; Piper seems sincerely relieved when Marigold plans to return to California. Piper’s actions as so disconcerting and infuriating to Marigold that she suspects Piper when someone contaminates Sammy’s oatmeal with peanut butter. These events cause deep friction between the stepsisters that juxtaposes significantly with the final scenes when Marigold rescues Piper, alleviates her guilt, and bonds with her over the scary events.

Alec is also the source of significant conflict within the family dynamics. Marigold suggests that her friction with Alec is longstanding although she does not disclose details; for example, when Alec opts to take Piper out for the grocery run, he asks Sammy to come along, but “knows better” than to even ask Marigold. Alec consistently sides with Piper in the fractious arguments between siblings and is not aware of Piper’s vindictiveness in her tattling and lying. Consequently, Alec contributes to the challenges as family members learn how to live with one another; he redeems himself in Marigold’s eyes in the later climactic events when he absolves her from Piper’s disappearance and insists they will stay together as a family.

Occasionally torn between the two sides of her newly formed family, Raquel tries to straddle the line between Alec’s suspicions over Marigold’s addiction and behavior and her support for her daughter. Adding to the complicated dynamics is that Marigold genuinely wants her mother to be happy and feels guilty for her addiction, rehabilitation-induced familial debt, and the overall doubt her mother cannot help but feel toward her. Like Alec and Piper, Raquel becomes closer and more trusting of Marigold once the climactic events of the novel reveal Marigold’s truthfulness. Despite the significant conflicts in Cedarville and the challenges they experience as a blended family, the Anderson-Greens are closer to each other due to what they have gone through on Maple Street.

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