Jean of the Joneses plot
"Jean's just trying to keep up."
"Why does everything always have to be about slavery and poverty," sighs writer Jean Jones, the neurotic, complacent but always charming scion of a Jamaican-American middle-class New York family. Struggling with expectations for her latest book, already billed as 'the next quintessential black experience', her life has come to a dead end. Her boyfriend has also coolly informed her that he needs time and space, leaving her suddenly homeless. A dinner with her perpetually bickering mother, aunts and grandmother then ends in tragedy with the unexpected appearance of Jean's grandfather, who dies in the doorway before he can even declare his arrival.