This chapter wrestles with the contradictory power that popular romance wields in American culture. These novels both uphold heteropatriarchal norms through their fidelity to the marriage plot, but also unsettle romance tropes as a mode of resisting pernicious stereotypes about Black love and dysfunctional families and counter ubiquitous representations of Black pain. Through a close reading of work by writers such as Sister Souljah, Terry McMillan, and Beverly Jenkins, this chapter upends the claim that Black popular romance is unimaginative and does not merit serious critical analysis as well as defies the common belief that Black popular fiction is a political wasteland. As it reimagines Black popular romance as a space of political possibility with immense cultural impact, this chapter deromanticizes the book publishing industry as a site of antiracism by uncovering the numerous hurdles that Black popular romance writers must clear before they publish novels with Black love at the center.

The second chapter continues the examination of class aspiration, but this time from the point of view of those entering the middle and upper-middle classes. Here government policies of affirmative action and Black Economic Empowerment have borne fruit for some. But the benefits of these policies come with strings attached, for the workplace is often experienced as hostile and unwelcoming. Life in the suburbs, even for the nouveau riche, can be alienating. The key texts studied in this chapter, aided by a wealth of ethnography in this area, are popular romances (Sapphire Press, Nollybooks) and ‘chick lit’ (Zukiswa Wanner, Cynthia Jele) aimed at black female South Africans. These texts, it is argued, serve a self-help function, negotiating shifting structures of identity along with changes in lifestyle, affiliation, values and meanings.