The House of Eve

The House of Eve is a work of historical fiction written by Sadeqa Johnson and published in 2023. The novel, which is set in the 1940s-1950s, follows two protagonists, high school student Ruby Pearsall and college student Eleanor Quarles Pride, in alternating chapters—with Ruby’s story being told from the first-person perspective and Eleanor’s being told from the third-person limited perspective. Both stories explore second chances and the ways in which gender, racism, and poverty affect choices.

Sadeqa Johnson has an MFA and teaches writing in Drexel’s MFA program; her other works include Yellow Wife (2021) and Love in a Carry-On Bag (2012). She has won numerous awards for her fiction, including the Phyllis Wheatley Book Award and the USA Book Award for Best Fiction. She also won the NBCC Fiction Book of the Year Award. This novel was selected as part of the Reese Witherspoon book club.

Content Warning: The House of Eve depicts anti-gay bias, miscarriage and child loss, sexual assault (of characters who are minors), forced adoption, racism, and mentions of death by suicide. The text also uses outdated and offensive language to refer to Black people, including the n-word.

This guide is based on the 2023 Simon and Schuster edition of the text.

Plot Summary

The House of Eve opens in Philadelphia in October 1948. High school student Ruby Pearsall is part of a local We Rise program, which gives Black students academic opportunities; those who live up to the program’s rigorous standards are given scholarships to Cheyney University, a college for Black students. This program is important to Ruby because it is the only way she can go to college, which she believes is her way out of generational poverty. She wants to become an optometrist to help people like her grandmother, who lost her sight.

Ruby is having a hard time succeeding in the program because her mother, Inez, does not support her. Eventually, Inez kicks Ruby out for kissing her boyfriend Leap, though Ruby only kissed Leap under coercion. She leaves to live with her Aunt Marie, where she befriends and falls in love with a Jewish boy named Shimmy Shapiro. Ruby is cautious about their relationship because she knows society views interracial couples with hostility. Shimmy does not judge people based on race but is ignorant of the struggles of Black people.

The two have sex, and Ruby gets pregnant. Shimmy wants to marry her, but his mother is against it. She is on the board for We Rise and tells Ruby that she will ensure her scholarship if Ruby gives up her baby for adoption. Against Shimmy’s wishes, Ruby agrees, going to the House of Magdalene, a home that allows only four spots for Black unwed mothers.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Quarles is a student at Howard University in Washington, DC. She comes from modest means but has a supportive home. She meets a medical student named William Pride, and the two fall in love. However, Rose Pride, William’s mother, does not approve of the relationship because she wants her son to marry a light-skinned woman of wealth.

Eleanor becomes pregnant and has a miscarriage, but William marries her against his mother’s wishes. Ruby miscarries again a year later, and her doctor explains that her medical history will make another pregnancy dangerous. She and William intend to adopt a child from the House of Magdalene. However, Eleanor and William’s intended baby is born with an eye condition, and Mother Margaret sends the "unadoptable" baby to an orphanage. She then induces Ruby into early labor so that she can give her baby to the couple.

Ruby spends a few days with her daughter before she is taken away. She finally realizes the price she has paid for her and Shimmy’s sexual encounter. Later, Eleanor and Rose make amends, and Ruby goes home without her baby. Ruby stays away from Shimmy despite his wishes for a relationship because she knows he is detrimental to her future. In the end, she becomes an optometrist.