What does it mean to be Black?
This question has plagued Alabaster, who manages to thrive in a world of Black and white, were lines are clearly drawn and everyone is safe as long as you do not transgress the color lines. The precocious child of a preacher and blues phenom on the church organ questions nearly everything he hears and sees and often ignores the social, cultural, and political lines set in Oklahoma. Coloring outside of the color lines has consequences, but they also help Alabaster answer his question.
Pigment, an Afrofuturistic Novel asks, “Does anyone ever want to be Black? Does Blackness have to be bequeathed and bestowed, and if so, by whom?” A curious child by nature, Alabaster provides others a blank canvas on which they could readily paint self-portraits. As he begins to realize that these paintings are actually x-rays that reveal the truths that can only be revealed in the space between Black and white, he decides to become his own canvas and exposes his own interiority for all to see. But is Alabaster ready to be and become Black?