Whitegirl

Whitegirl (2002) is a novel by American author Kate Manning. Drawing on the O.J. Simpson trial (as well as Shakespeare’s Othello), the novel is narrated by white supermodel Charlotte Halsey Robicheaux, who wakes up in the hospital with a deep slash across her throat. Everyone seems to think that the perpetrator is Charlotte’s husband, the black athlete-turned-film-star Milo Robicheaux, but Charlotte isn’t so sure, and as she tries to remember what happened she unspools her life story.

Charlotte wakes up in a hospital bed. Her throat is deeply scarred. Someone attacked her with a knife at her home in Malibu. The police have already arrested her husband, Milo, a film star and former Olympic skier, but Charlotte can’t testify against him. She was drunk and had been using drugs on the night of the attack. Furthermore, there is another suspect in the picture. That night, Charlotte had met with her former boyfriend Jack Sutherland, a man with a history of abusive behavior.

As she tries to recover the details of the assault, Charlotte reflects on the circumstances which brought her to this point. She remembers her upbringing in “Smalltown, California,” where her Mom, a one-time beauty queen who works now as an Avon representative, all but forces Charlotte to compete in pageants. Meanwhile, her father is a guilt-ridden former alcoholic who has turned to zealous evangelical Christianity. He flies into a rage whenever Charlotte so much as asks a question about the faith on which their family life is built.



In high school, Charlotte starts dating a boy who doesn’t see anything about her besides her beauty. When she breaks up with him, he rapes her. Charlotte finds herself unable to put up any resistance.

When the time comes for her to leave for college, Charlotte, determined to move as far away from home as she can get, chooses a small school in Vermont. Once there, she tries to shake off her strict upbringing by partying. Soon she has a boyfriend, Jack Sutherland, the handsome blond star of the college ski team. Everyone thinks they are the perfect couple: Ken and Barbie.

However, Charlotte simply doesn’t have strong feelings about him. She is much more curious about Jack’s reserved but charismatic teammate Milo Robicheaux, the only black skier and one of the only black students in the college. Milo is used to this, having grown up in an overwhelmingly white town. His well-to-do parents have always pushed him to achieve, even if it means becoming isolated in white environments. Nevertheless, Milo feels this isolation, trusting no-one but his family. He encounters everyday racism from his white peers, and when he does encounter black people, he feels judged as someone who has betrayed his racial identity. We see him deflect when a black character calls him an “Oreo,” white on the inside.



Jack’s status in the college and the ski team is such that it is unthinkable for Charlotte and Milo to act on their mutual attraction. Nevertheless, as Jack begins to sense Charlotte’s indifference to him, he becomes increasingly abusive. After a particularly violent outburst, she decides to flee the college altogether, slipping away to New York while Jack is away with the ski team.

Once in New York, she decides not to return to education. After trying her hand at a few jobs and failing to find a vocation, she falls into modeling. Before long she is attracting attention on runways. She hears Milo’s name from time to time, as he becomes the first black man to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics and follows it up with a few more.

One day, Charlotte and Milo bump into one another on the street. Free to act on their attraction, they begin dating. Charlotte feels that Milo sees past her beauty to her personhood, while Milo tells Charlotte that he admires her strength of character. From the beginning of their relationship, people tell them that their racial difference will make it impossible, but Milo and Charlotte don’t care. They’re in love. When Charlotte becomes pregnant, Milo proposes, and she accepts. She feels that they are “a living, breathing example of how Love was The Answer.”



When he retires from skiing, Milo becomes a TV personality. Husband and wife are both rich and famous, and still young. Most weeks end in a 72-hour cocaine-fueled party, either at their house in Malibu or at a celebrity event. From time to time, they still must deal with casual bigotry, but increasingly, they believe they have proved their doubters wrong.

The cracks begin to emerge when Milo hires Darryl, a black agent who seduces Milo with the promise of making him the first black action hero. Darryl is as good as his word, and Milo is cast in “Cade: Rebel Fury.” However, Darryl has some conditions. He doesn’t want his star to be seen in public with his “Barbie” wife. Darryl’s reasons are professional—it won’t go down well with fans—but his animosity toward Charlotte seems personal. He accuses her of seeing Milo as a “chocolate fantasy.”

As Milo becomes an increasingly important figure in the black community, Charlotte must navigate their racial difference in a new way. Inexperienced in racial matters, she makes several bad blunders, and she and Milo begin to fight, with Darryl encouraging Milo’s anger. Charlotte finally asks Milo to fire Darryl, and Milo agrees, but the damage has been done. As their drink-and-drug fueled lifestyle rolls on, both Milo and Charlotte begin to suspect the other of cheating. One day, Charlotte learns something which makes her think that Milo might not have fired Darryl.



Jack Sutherland shows up, eager to reconnect with Charlotte. She’s not interested, but suspecting Milo of being with another woman, she hopes to make him jealous. She and her old flame go out together. They drink and take drugs. Jack is disappointed when Charlotte announces that she is going home, but he doesn’t stop her. On the steps of her house, however, she is attacked. The novel leaves it to the reader to decide who tried to kill Charlotte. There is evidence to suggest that either Milo, Jack, or Darryl could be the perpetrator.