Pet

Jam is a 15-year-old Black transgender girl who “was born after the monsters, born and raised in Lucille” (11). Jam’s name evokes the sweetness and sourness of preserved fruit, and it indicates both Jam’s compassion and resilience. Jam is also fiercely protective of her loved ones. Jam speaks verbally with her mother but uses sign language with nearly everyone else, and has anxiety, which Emezi employs to distinguish between societal ills and individual differences in the utopian town of Lucille. In Lucille, individual differences are not eradicated, but each individual is supported according to their unique needs and abilities. Jam occasionally vocalizes with the people around her, especially her mother Bitter, but mostly communicates via sign language. As a toddler, Jam only used her voice to insist that she was a “Girl! Girl! Girl!” when she was misgendered after being assigned male at birth (20). Jam received a hormone implant when she was 13 and “watched her body change with delight” (20). Emezi does not go into detail about Jam’s physical appearance at the time of the novel, but the joy that Jam feels in her body is a vital part of her character, as Jam feels loved and supported as her true self in Lucille, complicating her discovery that a monster exists in her beloved town.