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Noni Reid has grown up in the shadow of her mother, Dr. Radiance Castine, renowned scholar of Black literature, who is alarmingly perfect at just about everything.. When Dr. Castine takes a job as the president of the prestigious Stonepost College in rural Virginia, Noni is forced to leave her New England home and, most importantly, a prime internship and her friends. She and her mother move into the "big house" on Tangleroot Plantation.. Tangleroot was built by one of Noni's ancestors, an enslaved man named Cuffee Fortune -- who Dr. Castine believes was also the original founder of Stonepost College, and that the school was originally formed for Black students. Dr. Castine spends much of her time trying to piece together enough undeniable truth in order to change the name of the school in Cuffee's honor -- and to force the university to reckon with its own racist past.