56 pages • 1 hour read
Sister SouljahThe Coldest Winter Ever
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
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BetaChapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Winter opens the narrative with a description of how she views Sister Souljah and subsequently introduces how she views herself:
I never liked Sister Souljah, straight up. She the type of female I’d like to cut in the face with my razor. Before I get heated just talking about her, let me make it clear who I am and where I stand. Don’t go jumping to conclusions either. All of y’all are too quick to jump to her defense without knowing what somebody up close and personal thinks (1).
Winter says that she was born in Brooklyn, but she doesn’t have “no sob stories for you about rats and roaches and pissy-pew hallways” (1). Born on January 28, 1977, during one of New York’s worst snowstorms, her mom, who is only 14 years old, names her Winter. Winter’s father, Ricky Santiaga, picks her and her mom up from the hospital in a limo and gives Winter a diamond ring because he wanted her to know she “deserved the best, no slum jewelry, cheap shoes, or knock-off designer stuff, only the real thing” (2).
Winter and her family live in the projects, but their apartment is “dipped,” meaning it’s filled with every luxury that money can buy, such as “top-of-the-line furniture, a fully loaded entertainment center, equipment, and all that good stuff” (2). Although they can afford to live somewhere nicer, Winter’s father, known as Santiaga, wants to live close to his business.
Winter loves her “pops with a passion. He was the smoothest nigga in the world” (2). She describes him as light-skinned, tall, charismatic, and an intelligent businessman:“He never wore the same shirt twice. He could do it like that ‘cause he was smart. He never used the drugs he sold. He collected his money on time and made examples of any fool who tried to cheat him” (3). Winter thinks of her dad as a family man because, to her knowledge, he has never cheated on her mom. In fact, her mom and dad were young lovers, and unlike most people in the projects, they stayed together and still seem in love.
Winter’s mom, known to Winter as “moms,” is stunningly beautiful: “Moms had everything by the way of clothes and anything else you could think of. Her mahogany skin was smooth as a Hershey’s chocolate bar. When she went anywhere she was well coordinated” (3). But beyond her beauty, her mom has class. She doesn’t work because she considers beauty “a full-time occupation that left no room for anything else” (4). Santiaga expects her to be “the showstopper” (4), and she spends three hours every morning getting ready. She considers herself a “bad bitch,” which means “a woman who handles her business without making it seem like business” (4).
Winter is accustomed to how her family does business: “By the time I was seven I understood the rules perfectly. Keep the family’s business quiet. Most things were better left unsaid” (5). She said people respect her father because of his product, “which was never watered down, always a fair cut for your money” (6). By the time Winter is 13, Santiaga is the “number one businessman in [their] area” (6). With an opulent amount of wealth at his fingertips, Santiaga spares no expensive in giving his family members every object their hearts desire.
Santiaga describes his drug business like a chess game. While most players are quick to sacrifice the pawn, Santiaga considers the pawns his soldiers: “If I surround myself with strong soldiers, give them all a stake in the game, then they keep the hood strong and tight” (7). While keeping hopeful rival dealers in check is Santiaga’s number two problem, Winter says that she is his number one problem:
He loved me like crazy but was getting nervous about the way men, young and old, was checking for me. It was amazing how in one year, from age twelve to thirteen, my titties sprouted. I even had the ass to match. I don’t know who was more excited, the men or me (8).
Winter flaunts her body, but Santiaga gives a “critical beat down” (8) to anyone who lustfully stares at his daughter. Describing Winter, her mom says to Santiaga: “When a woman wants to get fucked, she gets fucked. She gets fucked whether it’s in a car or a closet” (8). This only makes him crazier and more protective of his daughter. Winter says although she loves her dad, she hates “the way he cock-blocked” (10), and she sneaks to see boys in secret. Her number one crush is Midnight, who she guesses got his nickname because “midnight was the only thing blacker than him” (10). Midnight works for Santiaga doing pickups and deliveries. He is always serious and never smiles, but Winter loves the clean way he dresses and the manly way he carries himself. Despite the way Winter tries to flirt with Midnight, he never reciprocates, and Winter thinks it’s because he’s scared of Santiaga.
Winter describes her first “sugar daddy” as a guy named Sterling, a store manager who “got paid every two weeks and so did I” (13). She uses Sterling to get rides or new outfits, but it’s clear that Sterling really likes Winter. On Winter’s 16th birthday, Santiaga gives her a diamond bracelet and moves everyone to a mansion on Long Island. Winter, her little sister Porsche, and her mom object because they love Brooklyn, but Santiaga says they need to move to stay safe.
Winter is sad to leave Brooklyn because she’ll miss her friends, the best of which are Nat and Simone: “There wasn’t nothing that we hadn’t been through, including going to the funeral for Nique whose mother pushed her off the roof after she found out her man had been fucking her daughter” (18).
Chapter 2 Summary
Winter says that her little sisters, including the youngest twins, Mercedes and Lexus, “were completely won over by the drive through the fancy big-money Long Island neighborhoods” (19). The new Long Island mansion has marble floors, with enough space “to fit seven or so families. It was so wide we could even park our cars inside if we wanted” (19). Santiaga says that Momma can decorate it however she likes: “For an entire month we went through catalogs and magazines, mail-ordered shit, and received deliveries that Santiaga arranged” (20).
Despite the luxury, Winter thinks their new home is too isolating: “The silence in the Long Island mansion was killing me. You couldn’t just open the window, yell downstairs, and find out what’s jumping off later that night. The reality was that for the most part, in this area where we lived, nothing jumped off, period!” (21). Momma is bored too, and Santiaga agrees that she can throw a party every Saturday night for close family and friends. During the parties they eat, drink, and do cocaine, but Winter isn’t allowed to attend.
Winter usually babysits her younger siblings on the weekends, and to escape boredom she goes to the mall with them to try and pick up guys. She wears a shirt that reads: “THESE ARE NOT MY FUCKING KIDS!”(24) and doesn’t pick up any guys. She thinks the shirt is “too spicy” (24)for the Long Islanders.
Chapter 3 Summary
Winter tells her dad that she wants to get her hair done back at Earline’s beauty salon in Brooklyn. He says no, so she calls Sterling. She rationalizes using him for a ride: “The worst thing that might happen is I might have to end up giving him some pussy just to keep him in line or a quick blow job while he was driving. I wasn’t sweating it, though. I had done it before and I could easily do it again, especially to get the hell out of Long Island” (26).
Sterling gives Winter a ride to Earline’s, and she catches up on all the latest gossip. She hears that a girl named Tasia is allegedly sleeping with Midnight, and this makes her upset since she has a crush on him. Tasia is standing at the door of the salon. Winter checks her out, decides she’s a “Regular bitch” (28), so she’s not threatened. That night, she goes to the club with her friend Natalie. While Natalie distracts Midnight’s friends, Winter tries to flirt with him. She touches his hand, trying to make it clear that she wants to sleep with him: “He pulled his hand back like I had a disease […] Rage ripped through my chest as it became clear that I wasn’t even a consideration of his. Hell, he acted like I wasn’t even a woman” (30). She grabs a random guy and starts dancing with him sexually, hoping to make Midnight jealous, but instead he leaves.
After the club, Winter is walking home with her friends when Midnight pulls up alongside them: “[H]e called my name with a roughness that made me want to just hop on his dick and go buck” (31). She gets in his car and hears Sister Souljah on the radio, talking “about some black struggle” (33). She doesn’t like Souljah because she “likes to hear herself talk. She obviously didn’t know the time because drug dealers don’t destroy nothing. If there weren’t people on line to buy the product, there wouldn’t be no business. They do it by choice” (33). She tries to change the channel, but Midnight says no, making it clear he likes Souljah. Winter thinks Midnight changed his mind about hooking up with her, but instead he drops her off at her home in Long Island. Santiaga found out she was in Brooklyn, and he paid Midnight to bring her home safely.
Once inside, Santiaga tells Winter that the Brooklyn streets aren’t safe for her anymore now that he’s not living there. He forbids her from going to Brooklyn, at least for the time being. Feeling disappointed, she goes to her room to smoke a joint, but her mom comes to the door and interrupts her. She hides the joint under a towel on her bed. Her and her mom talk about boys: “A definite advantage to having babies at a young age. You get to chill with your moms like she’s your sister or something. Fuck all those stiff bastards complaining about teenage pregnancy, this and that. Me and my moms could party together” (38).
That night, Winter dreams that Midnight asks her dad for her hand in marriage. She wakes up to Natalie calling her on the phone. She lies to Natalie and tells her that she and Midnight slept together.
Chapter 4 Summary
Winter wakes up to her mom yelling at Santiaga for not having bought her a car already like he promised. It’s Momma’s birthday, so she and Santiaga leave to buy her a car. Later that evening, Winter describes how “the stars fell down, six minutes after six” (45). That’s when Midnight calls and says that he’s been instructed by Santiaga to pick her and her sisters up, but he won’t say why. After driving for a while, Midnight pulls over at the hospital. He and Winter talk outside the car, away from the little girls, and he says that her mom has been shot in the face. Winter goes into the hospital, but she’s not allowed to see her mom. Santiaga says that she’ll be okay, but she’s in surgery.
Midnight, Winter, and the girls check into a hotel. He informs Winter that they’ll be staying in the hotel for three days per Santiaga’s orders. Once in the hotel, with the little girls asleep, Winter tries to seduce Midnight, but he just gets annoyed and angry. The next day they all go shopping since they can’t go home to retrieve clothing. While shopping, Winter tries to pick out miniskirts, but Midnight tries to get her to pick out something more modest, saying it’s something he would want his little sister to wear. Winter gets offended because Midnight is admitting he thinks of her as a little sister, so Midnight says, “Fuck it, wear what you want to wear” (60).
Back in the hotel that night, Winter again tries to seduce Midnight, but he deflects her advances by telling her to read one of the books he has in his bag, such as “The Art of War, The Wretched Earth, [or] The Judas Factor” (63). Winter doesn’t read any of the books because she prefers fashion magazines. He asks her what she wants to be when she grows up, and she says that maybe she’ll sell drugs.
The next night, Midnight drops Winter and the girls off at their home in Long Island. Santiaga says that Momma will be alright, but her face will look strange until she is healed enough to get plastic surgery. Then he shows Winter the Mercedes-Benz that he bought for Momma. Winter is jealous, and automatically starts thinking about how she can drive it instead of Momma. Santiaga tells Winter that no matter what she must stay out of Brooklyn.
Chapter 5 Summary
Momma is back home from the hospital, and Winter considers her mother’s altered appearance: “Damn! Who was that? She looks bad!” (70). That night, Winter goes to Momma’s room to see how she’s feeling, but secretly she’s hoping that she can talk Momma into letting her borrow the Benz.
Later on, Natalie calls to try and talk Winter into going on a double-date with her, to which Winter is interested: “This date was something I needed in order to connect with myself and my people. I really needed the attention. Mamma had been hogging all of it up lately” (73). Winter compliments her mom, buttering her up to let her borrow the Benz on her birthday.
She talks Momma into letting her drive them to the mall for manicures and pedicures: “Pushing a Benz was like being president of the United States. It rode like a private jet. Even the potholes couldn’t affect the smoothness of the ride” (75).
On Winter’s birthday, she lies to her dad and says that she’s going to a party at the nearby University. Since he wants her to date college guys instead of drug dealers, he agrees to let her go if she’s back before midnight. She takes the Benz, but instead of going to the party, she picks up Natalie, Slick Kid (Natalie’s boyfriend), and Bullet. She’s wearing the diamond necklace her dad got her for her birthday, and “red leather shorts that wore like a miniskirt, a red leather vest that accentuated [her] titties and fit tight around [her] small waistline” (81). In the car, Sister Souljah comes on the radio and starts talking about AIDS, so Winter turns the channel.
Bullet is Winter’s date for the night:“[He] was looking good. I could see his gold teeth shining. That shit got me hot. A mouth full of gold is sexy like a motherfucker. It just adds to the ruggedness, accentuating the attitude” (82). They were supposed to go to a club, but instead Bullet suggests that instead they go to a hotel. While Natalie and Slick Kid go to get a room, Winter and Bullet make out: “I was kissing him with all the passion locked inside of me. It didn’t really matter who he was. He was a warm body, a masculine body. He had flavor. He would get to feel all of me tonight because I needed it” (84).
Once in the room, Winter and Bullet have sex: “I rode that dick like a professional jockey. All the energy in my body started running wild and high, then moved to the center and released” (85). Afterwards, they take a bubble-bath in the Jacuzzi, drink alcohol, and smoke weed. They sit in a comfortable silence until Natalie and Slick Kid come in; she gets in the water with Winter and Slick Kid films it.
Winter leaves the hotel in the middle of the night to get back home. Once there, she realizes everything is a mess. Momma informs her that Santiaga was arrested, and the feds messed everything up in the house. Momma says that Midnight looked for her at the University party, but he couldn’t find her. The feds also took all the money in the house safe, which means that Winter and Momma are nearly broke.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
The Coldest Winter Ever is best described as “urban fiction,” meaning it relies heavily on the themes of drugs, sex, and violence. In Chapters 1 through 5, these themes are demonstrated by the Santiaga family. Not only have drugs given the family incredible wealth, they are also the cause of their downfall. In Chapter 1, the protagonist of the novel, Winter, describes the opportunities that wealth has afforded her family. The main opportunity is that she and her family can buy whatever their hearts desire. For Winter and her mom, they have access to all the finest clothing, jewelry, and beauty salons. In this way, Winter defines by how much luxury a person can afford. In this chapter, Momma describes herself as a “bad bitch” (4). In essence, a “bad bitch” is a woman who uses her beauty to subtly get whatever she wants from men. Winter adopts this idea and considers herself a “bad bitch.” This is important because in every relationship Winter has, she uses the men to get what she wants. In exchange, the men get to use her for her beauty or for sex. While Momma’s definition of being a “bad bitch” seems to suggest female empowerment, Winter’s embodiment of the ideal reveals that she gets used and abused just as much, if not more, than the men she thinks she’s using.
Chapters 2 through 5 focus on Winter’s sexuality and love of materialism, and how these two ideas are often intimately linked. In particular, Winter has sex with Sterling in order to get some of his paycheck each week and access to his car. Then, when she’s living in Long Island, she uses Sterling to get a ride back to Brooklyn. In Chapter 5, Winter’s mom finally comes home from the hospital. However, instead of being excited for her mom’s return, she becomes jealous of all the attention she’s getting and thinks only of ways to borrow her mom’s new car. Her lack of empathy towards her mom and her fixation on driving the Benz demonstrates Winter’s fractured relationship with her mom and her use of materialism as a coping mechanism for dealing with an uncomfortable situation. She also has sex with Bullet, a complete stranger, to get the attention that she’s missing at home. These destructive acts reveal that although Winter claims to love all the affordances that come from her father’s lifestyle, she doesn’t have anyone in her life to teach her self-respect.
