Part 3/11:
The film begins with a scene featuring Issa Rae’s character, a poised and articulate young woman from a middle-class background reading her fiction, which is filled with street slang and gangster iconography. The protagonist’s frustration grows when his own books, which are more nuanced and intellectual, fail to find a wide audience. To break into the market and earn a better advance, he chooses to write what the publishers seem to want: raw, gritty stories about gangsters and urban vice, even though it isn't truly his voice.