Addie E. Citchens’s debut novel, Dominion (2025), is a work of Southern Gothic fiction set in the Mississippi Delta. The story centers on the Winfreys, a powerful family whose influence is anchored by the patriarch, Reverend Sabre Winfrey Jr., leader of the Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church. When the carefully constructed public image of their youngest son, the celebrated scholar athlete Emanuel “Wonderboy” Winfrey, begins to unravel, it threatens to reveal hidden tensions and conflicts within the family and their community. Citchens, a native of Clarksdale, Mississippi, has stated that the novel draws from her own observations of church culture in the Delta. Before publishing Dominion, her short story “That Girl” won an O. Henry Prize, and she was the inaugural recipient of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux Writer’s Fellowship.

Dominion uses the conventions of the Southern Gothic genre to explore themes of inherited trauma and moral decay. The novel was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Willie Morris Award. Its narrative examines Abusing Spiritual Authority for Personal Gain, Violence and Entitlement as Learned Behaviors and The Burdens and Rebellions of Women in a Patriarchal World.

This guide refers to the 2025 Farrar, Straus and Giroux first edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of sexual violence, rape, physical abuse, emotional abuse, animal cruelty, animal death, substance use, addiction, graphic violence, death by suicide, sexual content, pregnancy termination, antigay bias, cursing, and mental illness.

Plot Summary

Reverend Sabre Winfrey Jr., is the pastor of Seven Seals Missionary Baptist Church in Dominion, Mississippi. He lives with his wife, Priscilla, and their sons, including Emanuel, called Manny or Wonderboy. Priscilla suffers from chronic pain due to a childhood hip injury and uses prescription pills and whiskey to cope.

During a Sunday service, Priscilla watches her husband preach while noticing Manny exchanging glances with a girl in the congregation. When her pain flares, Priscilla gets nerve pills from an usher, Bertha Benny. The girl is Diamond Bailey, Manny’s girlfriend. Diamond lives with her adoptive mother, Maggie. She and Manny are in a relationship and have decided to remain celibate. Later that week, Priscilla returns home to find Manny’s truck parked in the alley. Upstairs, she walks in on him standing over a naked Diamond, masturbating. He makes direct eye contact with his mother as she closes the door. Shocked, Priscilla retreats to her room for pills and whiskey. Diamond leaves with Manny. She later reflects on her mother, who experienced mental illness and disappeared years earlier, leaving Diamond and her siblings, Yancey, Cricket, and Popeye, at a motel. Priscilla is disturbed by the incident, which reminds her of Sabre’s sexual coercion, and senses a similar energy of “dominion” in her son. An interlude reveals a younger Manny sexually assaulting a seventh-grade girl in the Canoe, a large replica of a Choctaw boat and a local landmark.

Days later, Diamond is depressed and recalls the night she and her siblings searched for their mother after she vanished. Priscilla confronts Manny, who only apologizes. She remembers a traumatic incident when Sabre brutally beat their dog, Sam, resulting in the dog’s death. The event created a permanent rift in their marriage, and she moved into the guest bedroom. She confronts Sabre about his suspected affair with a young widow, Kathareen. Meanwhile, Manny reconciles with Diamond and gives her a driving lesson, telling her a man should never have to hit his woman.

Priscilla discovers her valuable emerald earrings are missing and accuses Manny and Diamond of theft, slapping Manny. Soon after, Manny gives the stolen earrings to Diamond. While out with Manny, Diamond encounters her brother, Yancey, on a street corner. At church, Priscilla sees Diamond wearing the earrings. Needing pills, she goes with Bertha to the trailer of Bertha’s brother, Tyrone Benny, a veteran known as the Joker, to buy some. She then returns home and demands the earrings from Manny.

A local man, the Joker, lives in the concession stand at the high school football stadium. One morning, Manny goes to the stadium track to run and encounters a stranger. They race competitively, after which the stranger kisses him. Horrified by his own response, Manny vomits. The Joker, having witnessed the kiss, emerges and tries to blackmail him. Enraged, Manny beats and strangles the Joker to death. He hides the body in a bathroom stall and finds a notebook on the corpse with the name Midas T. Benny inside. He then recruits Yancey to help him wrap the body in a tarp and dump it in a wooded area, after which Yancey is never seen again. 

After Manny returns her earrings, Priscilla reconsiders her perception of him. Days later, Manny comes to Diamond’s house, and they have sex for the first time. He asks her to promise to love him and then leaves, disappearing for several days.

Jimmy Wooten comes home to find his daughter, Caticia, injured with signs of assault. He takes her to the Winfrey house, where Manny denies the assault, claiming Caticia propositioned him. Defeated, Jimmy leaves. Priscilla searches Manny’s room, finding the Joker’s notebook and a locked box containing eight sealed envelopes filled with fabric. Manny reappears at Diamond’s house, tells her he is in trouble, and convinces her to run away with him.

They drive south to Long Beach and check into the Coastal Starlight Inn. The next day, a woman comes to their room asking for Manny. Meanwhile, Maggie calls Priscilla to report the kids are missing. Priscilla discovers Manny also stole her pills. Unable to get more because Tyrone Benny is missing, she drives to Sabre’s barbershop and walks in on him with Kathareen, leading to a physical fight. Back home, she and Sabre agree to handle the crisis together. At the motel, a white woman and a man from the front desk join Manny and Diamond. Manny drinks alcohol and uses marijuana.

The next morning, Diamond wakes to find Manny and his truck gone. He returns later, beaten and disoriented, missing his truck and his guitar. He is distraught and ingests pills from a bottle prescribed to Midas T. Benny. Diamond finds him unconscious and calls 911. Sabre and Priscilla drive to the hospital, arguing. At the hospital, Diamond waits by Manny’s side. When his parents arrive, Rev. Winfrey tries to question Diamond, but she does not respond. Manny eventually wakes up, looks at Diamond, and then says, “She’s pregnant. A girl named Sonja” (165). Diamond recognizes the name as her mother’s, which she had not shared with him.

Bertha informs Priscilla that the remains of her brother, Tyrone, have been found. Priscilla acknowledges her role in hiding the Joker’s notebook. She decides to leave Sabre and moves into a small house he owns. At church, Reverend Winfrey publicly confesses his failings and steps down from his leadership position. Diamond, now pregnant, is kept at home by Maggie.  She learns Manny has been transferred to a private school, Dominion Academy.

Manny visits Priscilla at her new house. He claims he cannot remember the events that led to his suicide attempt. After he leaves, Priscilla finds the locked box from his room, which he brought over. She opens it and discovers it is filled with women’s panties. Diamond seeks help from Mrs. Kathareen, asking for a root to make Manny love her, but Kathareen refuses. Priscilla invites Diamond over and shows her the box of panties, revealing Caticia Wooten’s assault accusation. Inside the box, Diamond finds the friendship bracelet she made for Yancey, confirming Manny was the last person to see him.

Jimmy Wooten receives an anonymous envelope containing a pair of panties he assumes belong to his daughter. He takes his pistol and begins following Manny. He follows Manny and his girlfriend to her house. A short time later, he sees Manny run naked from the house. A newspaper article reports that Emanuel Winfrey was shot and killed during a home invasion and rape attempt. Jimmy attends the funeral to confirm the news.

Emanuel’s obituary details his many accomplishments, omitting the circumstances of his death. At the funeral, Diamond learns of the rumors surrounding Manny’s death. She reveals that she was the one who sent the panties to Jimmy Wooten, setting the final events in motion. Seeing Manny in his casket, she decides not to continue the pregnancy. She plans to leave Dominion.