Tish visits Fonny in the Tombs and reveals to him that she is pregnant with his child.

Tish recalls how she and Fonny spent their childhood fighting each other before becoming close friends.

Tish tells Sharon she is pregnant, and Sharon reassures her that the family will stand by her and Fonny.

Sharon raises a drink at dinner and announces Tish's pregnancy to the gathered Rivers family.

The Hunt family visits the Rivers home and Alice curses the unborn baby as a product of sin.

Sis curses out Alice and her daughters and throws the entire Hunt family out of the Rivers apartment.

Hayward tells Tish and Sharon that Victoria Rogers has likely fled to Puerto Rico.

Hayward reveals that Daniel Carty has been arrested on narcotics charges, putting Fonny's key alibi in jeopardy.

Sis reveals that Officer Bell killed a twelve-year-old Black boy and was transferred to Manhattan as a consequence.

Tish and Fonny pay a deposit to landlord Levy and sign a lease on a loft in Lower Manhattan.

A drunk teenager sexually harasses Tish at a produce stand and Fonny strikes the teen in her defense.

Bell threatens to arrest Fonny after the confrontation and vows he expects to see Fonny around.

Sharon returns from Puerto Rico and reports that Victoria Rogers suffered a complete psychological breakdown and was taken away.

Frank Hunt loses his job for theft, leaves home drunk, and kills himself with car exhaust fumes.

Tish collapses upon hearing of Frank's suicide and goes into labor; the novel closes ambiguously with Fonny sculpting as a baby cries.

If Beale Street Could Talk opens with nineteen-year-old Tish Rivers visiting her imprisoned boyfriend Fonny Hunt and revealing she is pregnant with his child. The Rivers family rallies around Tish, but their celebration is shattered when Fonny's mother Alice curses the baby and Sis throws the Hunt family out. The search for justice reveals that Fonny's key alibi witness has been arrested and the rape victim has fled to Puerto Rico, leaving his case in shambles. Tish and Fonny's recent happiness — signing a lease on a loft and planning a future together — is poisoned by a chance encounter with the corrupt Officer Bell, who frames Fonny for a rape he did not commit. Sharon travels to Puerto Rico in a last-ditch effort to find Victoria Rogers, but returns home having failed. The novel ends with Frank Hunt's suicide sending Tish into labor, and an ambiguous final image of Fonny sculpting as his newborn child cries in the background.

The headline events of Fonny's arrest, the family's fight to free him, and the novel's devastating conclusion.

Tish attends an Easter church service with the Hunts and watches Alice perform exaggerated piety for her congregation.

Tish feels her baby kick for the first time while the Rivers family sits together at dinner.

Fonny presents Sharon Rivers with his carved wooden sculpture of a tormented Black man as a gift.

Fonny formally asks Joseph Rivers for permission to marry Tish, and Joseph reluctantly gives his blessing.

Daniel arrives at Fonny's apartment for dinner and recounts the violence and trauma he suffered while incarcerated.

Tish, Fonny, and Daniel sing Billie Holiday's 'My Man' together at the close of their dinner.

Fonny is short-tempered and angry with Tish during a prison visit after learning Victoria has fled the country.

Tish considers taking up sex work as a desperate means to raise money for Fonny's legal fees.

Joseph tells Frank that both men must steal goods from their jobs to fund Fonny's legal defense.

Sharon arrives in Puerto Rico and secures a local driver named Jaime through the hotel's rental counter.

Sharon visits a nightclub and confronts Pietro Alvarez, who refuses to arrange contact with Victoria Rogers.

Joseph tells Tish firmly that the time has come for her to stop working due to her difficult pregnancy.

Sharon tracks Victoria Rogers to a poverty-stricken slum built over a garbage dump in Santurce.

Fonny is placed in solitary confinement after refusing to submit to rape by other inmates.

A bail determination is reached for Fonny, but the amount is set so high it strains every resource the family has.

Beneath the headline events of the novel, a rich web of relationships and decisions drives the story forward. Tish's early observations of the Hunt household — including Alice's performative faith at an Easter church service — reveal why Fonny lacks a stable family to support him, contrasting sharply with the warmth of the Rivers home. The Rivers family is repeatedly forced to sacrifice and improvise, from Joseph and Frank agreeing to steal from their jobs to Tish briefly contemplating sex work to cover legal fees. Flashback scenes show Daniel Carty's dinner visit to Fonny's apartment as a key moment that establishes his alibi value while also revealing the devastating trauma that prison left behind. Sharon's journey to Puerto Rico — from securing a driver at the hotel counter to confronting Pietro Alvarez in a nightclub — is a mission of love that ultimately fails to reach Victoria Rogers. By the final section, Fonny's prison conditions have deteriorated: he endures solitary confinement after refusing to be raped, and a bail determination provides hope but at a crushing financial cost.

The relationships, family dynamics, and behind-the-scenes efforts that shape the fight for Fonny's freedom.

Tish reflects that the criminal justice system traps poor people like a desert while lawyers circle overhead like vultures.

After the church visit, Tish concludes that Alice Hunt's faith cannot offer genuine protection to people like her and Fonny.

Frank Hunt strikes Alice after she curses Tish's unborn baby, exposing the violence simmering beneath the Hunt household.

Tish and Fonny spend their first night together as lovers and commit to building a shared life.

Daniel explains how possessing a small amount of marijuana led to his imprisonment despite having no knowledge of a stolen car.

Tish reads the graphic crime report accusing Fonny of rape and is certain his innocence must be obvious to any reader.

After Tish's nightmare, Sharon warns her that loving a Black man means accepting the possibility he may die in prison.

Sis and Tish talk through the case at a bar, mapping out every obstacle standing between Fonny and freedom.

The judge repeatedly postpones Fonny's trial, leaving him detained with no court date in sight.

Levy warns Tish and Fonny that the police in their new neighborhood are dangerous, a warning the couple underestimates.

The Italian shopkeeper intervenes during Bell's confrontation with Fonny and forces the officer to back down.

Tish realizes that the baby's growing strength inside her and Fonny's fierce determination to be free are deeply connected.

Bell presses against Tish while she carries packages alone on the street, making his sexual threat unmistakably clear.

Tish learns that Daniel was raped in prison and witnessed nine other rapes; Fonny is arrested that same night.

Fonny wakes in his cell and retreats into a dream of shaping a new sculpture, using imagination to survive imprisonment.

This pool traces the novel's most defining moments of understanding and consequence, beginning with Tish's stark recognition that the criminal justice system is designed to trap poor Black people and ending with Fonny using imagination to survive his imprisonment. Early revelations — that Alice Hunt's religion is hollow, that Fonny's artistic identity was built by defying a system meant to contain him — establish the competing forces of destruction and resilience at the heart of the story. The confrontation with Bell crystallizes how little it takes to destroy a Black man's life: a shopkeeper's intervention temporarily saves Fonny, but Bell's vow to return proves prophetic. The novel's final turn comes when Sharon's Puerto Rico mission fails, Daniel is silenced and broken, and Tish learns that Fonny's arrest happened the very night she discovered what prison had done to Daniel. Throughout, acts of love — Tish's epiphany about her baby, Fonny's imagined sculpting in his cell — emerge as the only real weapons against the carceral state.

The discoveries, decisions, and emotional reckonings that reveal how racism and love shape every character's fate.