In Every Mirror She's Black

Three Black women from vastly different backgrounds find their lives shaped by their connection to Johan "Jonny" von Lundin, the reclusive CEO of one of Sweden's largest marketing firms, as each confronts racism, isolation, and loss while trying to build a life in Stockholm.

Kemi Adeyemi is a Nigerian American marketing executive in Washington, DC, and a two-time National Marketing Executive of the Year. Despite her success, she is lonely, frustrated by degrading dating experiences, and stifled by her boss, Connor McDonough, whose possessive behavior makes her uncomfortable. When Ingrid Johansson, head of talent management at von Lundin Marketing, calls to recruit her as global diversity and inclusion director, Kemi recognizes the offer as damage control after the company's racially insensitive IKON advertising campaign drew international criticism. Jonny flies to DC to court her over lunch, offering to double her salary. Kemi notices his intense, fidgeting mannerisms but is drawn to the opportunity. Connor's possessive touch at an office celebration solidifies her decision to leave, and she accepts the offer, encouraged by her twin sister Kehinde.

Brittany-Rae Johnson is a thirty-eight-year-old former model turned British Airways flight attendant from Atlanta. At nineteen, legendary designer Samuel Beaufount lured her from fashion school into modeling before sexually assaulting her, an experience that has shaped her relationships ever since. On a business-class flight, Brittany encounters Jonny, who stares at her with unnerving intensity and asks her to dinner. She declines, citing her boyfriend Jamal, a DC attorney. Jonny pursues her relentlessly across subsequent flights, sending flowers to her town house. When she reluctantly agrees to dinner in London, she flees midmeal; he chases her and kisses her, and she slaps him. His pursuit destroys her relationship with Jamal, who leaves after Jonny shows up uninvited at their doorstep and Jamal headbutts him unconscious. Brittany drags the injured man inside and, despite her anger, finds herself drawn to the one quality that distinguishes Jonny from the men who have deceived her: He appears incapable of lying.

Muna Saheed is an eighteen-year-old Somali refugee living at Solsidan, a former monastery turned asylum center in the Swedish countryside, anonymously funded by Jonny. Muna lost her father when their apartment building collapsed in Mogadishu, and her mother and younger brother drowned in the Mediterranean during their flight from Somalia. Her closest companion at the center is Ahmed Tofiq Rahim, a Kurdish former landscape artist from Aleppo. Ahmed's asylum applications have been repeatedly denied by Migrationsverket, Sweden's migration agency. When Muna's asylum is approved but Ahmed's is denied again, he hands her a worn sack and sets himself on fire in the center's dining hall. Muna refuses to turn Ahmed's belongings over to police. She later discovers the sack holds family photos, passport photos of 104 people from his destroyed village of Al Zawr, and sand from Kurdistan: evidence that could have secured his claim but that he refused to submit to authorities he did not trust.

As the three women's lives take shape in Sweden, their paths occasionally intersect. Kemi arrives in Stockholm and meets her all-white team of directors, only to learn she will report to Ingrid rather than directly to Jonny, contradicting the original offer. She struggles with culture shock, loneliness, and a dating scene even more demoralizing than the one she left behind. She befriends Malcolm, an Afro-Swedish American musician from her Swedish language class, and eventually meets Tobias, a Gambian-Swedish barista who becomes her boyfriend. Their relationship is slow and stable, though Kemi's sister later plants doubts about Tobias's lack of career ambition.

Brittany and Jonny's affair escalates into a whirlwind romance as he follows her flight schedule across cities throughout the summer. When Brittany discovers she is pregnant, Jonny declares he wants the baby and tells her he loves her. He proposes and flies her to Stockholm to meet his family. The lunch with his parents is catastrophic: His mother, Astrid, interrogates him in Swedish, asking if Brittany is his "toy of the week." Jonny breaks down, his anxious mannerisms overwhelming him, until Brittany calms him by covering his hands and whispering soothingly. They wed quietly at Stockholm's City Hall with only Jonny's best friend Ragnar and Brittany's best friend Tanesha as witnesses; his family learns of the marriage from tabloid headlines. After the birth of their daughter, whom Jonny insists on naming Maya, Brittany grows increasingly isolated in their mansion, her social world reduced to visits with Jonny's sister Antonia.

Muna moves to Tensta, a suburb northwest of Stockholm, and is placed in a subsidized apartment with two Somali roommates, Khadiija and Yasmiin. She gets a cleaning job at von Lundin Marketing through Yagiz, a Turkish man who runs a cleaning company and is Yasmiin's volatile boyfriend. At the office, Muna spots Kemi and feels pride at seeing a Black woman in authority but also overhears Swedish colleagues dismissing Kemi behind her back. Muna's home life fractures when Yasmiin moves out to live with Yagiz and Khadiija is arrested after participating in riots sparked by the public brutalization of a Somali boy. Yagiz fires Muna in retaliation.

At von Lundin, Kemi scores a major victory by conceiving a bold campaign for Bachmann, a German luxury shoe brand, proposing to put Jonny himself in bedazzled sneakers alongside diverse models under the slogan "Dare to be different." Despite resistance, Jonny backs her, and Bachmann awards them the contract. When Jonny later installs Ragnar as creative director on the account, stripping Kemi of creative control, she realizes her role has been reduced to a diversity checkbox. Ragnar's arrival also destabilizes Kemi personally: She feels a volcanic attraction to him that contrasts with her gentle relationship with Tobias. At the company Christmas party, they share desperate kisses in an elevator, but Kemi tearfully tells him to go home to his pregnant wife. When Ragnar reveals his true character by telling her she "would have been one sweet fuck," Kemi slaps him and returns home to Tobias, asking him to move back to the United States with her.

Brittany's world collapses when Antonia reveals a buried family secret. At sixteen, Jonny fell in love with Maya Daniels, a Black British girl who died from a botched abortion that Astrid arranged. Antonia shows Brittany a photo of the teenage couple: Maya is a dead ringer for Brittany. Brittany realizes Jonny named their daughter after his deceased first love and has been reconstructing the life he lost. When she confronts him, Jonny claims he has never heard the name, the first outright lie he has ever told her, shattering the foundation of their relationship. Jonny retrieves baby Maya from the hotel where Brittany had fled, singing a Swedish nursery rhyme while cradling the child. Brittany understands he will never let her go.

Muna's trajectory is the most devastating. Gunhild, the elderly Swedish municipal worker who has become her surrogate mother, offers Muna a room in her apartment and encourages her to pursue her dream of becoming an accountant. The two grow close, sharing their deepest losses. Then Gunhild dies peacefully in her armchair overnight, leaving Muna alone. That same evening, Muna goes to von Lundin's offices to pick up her key card after Yagiz agrees to rehire her for night shifts. Outside the hotel hosting the company Christmas party, a drunk young Swedish man gropes her and tells her to go back where she came from. Muna pushes him, and he falls backward, cracking his skull on the pavement. She flees into the subway, and standing on the platform, she envisions everyone she has ever loved waiting for her on the other side. Muna jumps in front of an oncoming train. An announcement apologizes to passengers for a delay due to an "accident" on the green line.