Hollers - Alice's Friend's House

After the incident in Santa Monica the two return to a friendlier neighborhood. “I followed Alice into the small, cramped room, wondering how she knew such people; they were more the kind of people I should know” (65). This scene exposes a number of divisions among the characters in the novel. We get statements of gender difference (“‘Men are such boors,’ Alice commented acidly (66)), of racial difference (Bob’s descriptions of everyone’s skin color (65)) and finally, of difference in sexual orientation. Himes only hints at Alice’s lesbianism here but the issue becomes explosive later in the novel.