logo

51 pages 1 hour read

Black Cake

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Pages 260-320Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Pages 260-320 Summary

Shortly after Eleanor Bennett is told she will begin chemotherapy to arrest her cancer, she is surfing the web when she happens to see a pop-up ad for chayote, a Caribbean vegetable, a kind of squash with a bumpy, tough skin. The ad makes Eleanor immediately think back to her childhood, when the vegetable was used in family recipes. She absently clicks on the image and watches a short video by an apparently famous London food expert all about the uses of the vegetable. It takes only a moment for Eleanor to realize this food expert, identified as Marble Martin, is none other than the daughter she gave up for adoption nearly 50 years earlier. She is certain, and she realizes in that anguished moment how much a mother “could love a child taken away from her” (284). Using the resources of the Internet, Eleanor secures Marble’s phone number, but though she gathers the courage to make the call, she cannot bring herself to say anything when she hears her long-lost daughter say “Hello.”

The focus turns briefly to Marble Martin’s epiphany as a teenager when she is first developing into womanhood that she is physically strikingly different from her very white parents—she is taller, her body curves are fuller, her hair is more tangled, her nose is noticeably squashed, and her skin color is darker.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
Unlock IconUnlock all 51 pages of this Study Guide

Plus, gain access to 8,600+ more expert-written Study Guides.

Including features:

+ Mobile App
+ Printable PDF
+ Literary AI Tools