Lulabelle Simms: The Pragmatic Madam of Kin

Overview

Lulabelle Simms is the co-owner of a Mississippi farm-turned-brothel, a woman who transforms inherited land—once worked by her enslaved ancestors and sharecropping parents—into a space of economic survival for herself and the women she employs. As the twin sister of Lurelia, Lulabelle embodies a blend of toughness, resourcefulness, and hidden tenderness. She forms a crucial, quasi-maternal bond with the protagonist Annie, offering her refuge, advice, and eventually access to an illegal abortion. Lulabelle is a survivor who refuses romantic or biological motherhood, yet she mothers the women who pass through her property on her own terms.

In Kin, Lulabelle represents the intersection of pragmatic self-interest and reluctant generosity. She is a character shaped by the dual inheritances of her mother’s death in childbirth and her father’s history of abuse, and she channels that history into a determination never to be vulnerable to men or fate. Her brothel is not merely a place of commerce but a sanctuary—though one with strict rules and no illusions about the world’s cruelty.

Plot Role

Lulabelle first appears in Chapter 4 when Annie, Babydoll, Bobo, and Clyde arrive at her property after being turned away by Lurelia. She immediately sets the tone: “This here is a whorehouse” (Chapter 4). From that moment, she functions as a gatekeeper and a provider. She offers the group shelter in exchange for labor, later becoming a confidante to Annie. In Chapter 8, while Annie braids her hair, Lulabelle explains the three paths available for pregnant women in her brothel: continued work until showing, having the baby for adoption, or obtaining an abortion via a white doctor from Meridian. This conversation establishes her as a figure who navigates moral gray areas with clear-eyed practicality.

Her most pivotal plot role occurs in Chapters 38 and 39 when Annie returns, pregnant and desperate, and Lulabelle arranges the abortion. Despite having previously written to Annie, “I do not want you around my place… take it in the loving way that it is intended” (Chapter 31), Lulabelle relents when she sees Annie’s condition. She provides the doctor and administers a pill afterward, ensuring Annie’s survival. In Chapter 44, Lulabelle and Babydoll attend Annie during the procedure, highlighting her role as a caregiver in a crisis she understands intimately.

Lulabelle also serves as a living link to the novel’s themes of secrets and lies—her brothel is a place where women hide pregnancies, identities, and pasts—and to the theme of sacrifice, as she sacrifices comfort and sentimentality to provide a hard-edged form of love.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Survival and Independence: Lulabelle’s primary motivation is self-sufficiency. She explains that she bought the land her father was beaten on and got rid of all crops: “If I never see another stalk of cane for the rest of my life, I’ll die happy” (Chapter 38). This rejection of the sharecropping past is an act of reclamation. She refuses to be controlled by men or by conventional morality. When Annie asks why she doesn’t have a man, Lulabelle replies, “I don’t let men anywhere near me” (Chapter 8). Her body is her own, and she uses it as a base of operations rather than a commodity.

Pragmatism and Tough Love: Lulabelle’s decisions are guided by what works, not by sentiment. She tells Annie bluntly that looking for Hattie Lee is a “fool’s errand” (Chapter 8). She writes a letter advising Annie to get over Bobo by finding another man, and she frames her refusal to see Annie as loving: “I told you before but I will underline myself. Nobody ever comes back here for nothing good” (Chapter 31). Yet her actions contradict her words when she accepts Annie back and helps her, revealing that her harshness is a protective layer.

Maternal Instinct Without Biological Motherhood: Lulabelle mothers the girls in her charge, especially Annie, whom she calls “little girl” and kisses five times on the face (Chapter 12). However, she has chosen not to have children, seeing her mother’s death as a warning. When Annie says she loves her, Lulabelle responds with genuine affection but also with a command to stay gone: “bless your heart I hope to never see you again” (Chapter 12). She loves best by pushing people toward a life away from her.

Sibling Bond: With her twin Lurelia, Lulabelle has a relationship of bickering intimacy. They share a history of forced labor and their mother’s ghost. Lulabelle believes their mother’s spirit haunts the lean-to, while Lurelia attributes the haint to the devil. Their argument in the rose garden reveals their differing worldviews, but they remain united in their grief and their ownership of the property.

Chronological Arc

First Encounter (Chapter 4): Annie arrives at Lulabelle’s brothel. Lulabelle is candid about the nature of the business. She offers shelter for labor, establishing a transactional but protective stance.
Hair-Braiding Scene (Chapter 8): Lulabelle allows Annie to braid her hair, a moment of intimacy. She explains the three options for pregnant women and reveals she has never seen her own mother’s face (a parallel to Annie’s search). She hints at her own traumatic birth story.
Bobo and Annie’s Union (Chapter 12): After Annie loses her virginity to Bobo, Lulabelle approves: “It’s about time… But that Bobo never struck me as a soul thief.” She kisses Annie goodbye and tells her never to return, a sign of love that hopes for Annie’s better future.
Letter Exchange (Chapter 31): Annie writes to Lulabelle after Bobo leaves her. Lulabelle responds with three pieces of practical advice and a firm refusal to let her come back, signed with a postscript from their deceased mother’s spirit dictating the message. This letter deepens the connection between Lulabelle and Hortense.
Reunion and Abortion (Chapters 38–39): Annie returns pregnant and abandoned. Lulabelle, though initially cold, softens when she sees Annie’s state. She arranges the abortion and administers aftercare, showing a willingness to break her own rule for Annie’s sake.
Procedure (Chapter 44): Lulabelle is present as Annie lies on the table, a quiet witness to the danger both women understand.

Relationships

Lurelia Simms (twin sister): Their relationship is marked by lifelong solidarity, playful teasing, and shared trauma. Lulabelle mocks Lurelia’s naive piety, while Lurelia chides Lulabelle for her hardness. In Chapter 38, Lulabelle says, “We own the land our daddy was beat on. We own the land our mama died on.” Together, they embody two responses to a brutal past: Lulabelle’s cynical pragmatism and Lurelia’s religious hope.
Annie: Lulabelle becomes a surrogate mother figure. She gives Annie practical advice, offers her a place to heal, and performs a dangerous act of care (the abortion). Her tough love—“I hope I never see you again”—is paradoxical but genuine. Annie’s search for Hattie Lee mirrors Lulabelle’s unresolved grief for Hortense.
Babydoll: Lulabelle has little patience for Babydoll, referring to her with dismissive humor (“I forgot there were two of them”). Babydoll’s presence at the abortion highlights the strained but necessary alliance.
The Women of the Brothel: Lulabelle manages the girls with an iron hand but also provides a livelihood. She is respected and feared, a maternal despot.

Key Decisions and Consequences

1. Turning the farm into a brothel: This decision allows Lulabelle economic independence but places her outside respectable society. She owns the land, yet the business perpetuates cycles of exploitation and vulnerability. The consequence is that she becomes both a protector and a profiteer, a moral contradiction she never fully resolves.

2. Refusing to bear children: Lulabelle’s choice to remain childless is a direct response to her mother’s death in childbirth. It protects her from physical danger but also leaves her without a legacy in the traditional sense. Instead, she mothers proxy children like Annie.

3. Helping Annie obtain an abortion: After explicitly forbidding Annie’s return, Lulabelle changes her mind when confronted with Annie’s desperation. This decision carries risks—legal, moral, and emotional. It reaffirms her role as a caregiver but also exposes her to the doctor’s demand for a next of kin. The consequence is that Annie survives, but the experience deepens Annie’s bond with Lulabelle and sets up the novel’s exploration of chosen family.

4. Planting the rose garden: The garden is a memorial to Hortense. Lulabelle tends it as a way to honor the mother she never knew, yet she also acknowledges that Hortense’s spirit refuses to leave the dilapidated lean-to. This decision symbolizes Lulabelle’s attempt to control her inherited grief, but the garden cannot fully exorcise the past.

Theme and Symbol Connections

Motherhood and Abandonment: Lulabelle’s mother Hortense died giving birth to the twins. Lulabelle has no desire to replicate that fate. She becomes a stand-in mother for Annie, a mirror to Annie’s search for Hattie Lee. The motherhood and abandonment theme is embodied in her simultaneous rejection and embrace of maternal care.
Friendship and Kinship: The bond between Lulabelle and Annie is a form of chosen kinship. Lulabelle tells Annie, “Oh, but I love you, little girl,” even as she pushes her away. This friendship and kinship transcends blood ties. Her relationship with Lurelia also illustrates that kinship can be both a burden and a refuge.
Class and Colorism: Lulabelle’s brothel is a space where the realities of class and colorism are stark. She serves a clientele of white men and provides illegal medical services that are harder for Black women to access. Her own upward mobility from sharecropping to landownership is rare, and she protects it fiercely.
Secrets and Lies: The brothel thrives on discretion. Lulabelle keeps the secret of the abortion doctor, the identities of clients, and her mother’s ghost. Her letter to Annie includes a postscript from Hortense’s spirit, blurring the line between the living and the dead—a secret that only Annie and Lulabelle share.
Love and Sacrifice: Lulabelle’s love for Annie is expressed through sacrifice of her own rules and safety. She performs the abortion knowing the risks. Her final act in the novel is to ensure Annie lives, a stark example of love and sacrifice.

Book-Specific Questions and Answers

1. Why does Lulabelle run a brothel instead of continuing to farm the land?
Lulabelle inherited land that her father was beaten on and her mother died on. She eradicated all crops because she could not bear to see sugarcane, a symbol of the brutal sharecropping past. Running a brothel gives her financial autonomy without the physical trauma of farming. She tells Annie, “If I never see another stalk of cane for the rest of my life, I’ll die happy” (Chapter 38).

2. Why does Lulabelle help Annie get an abortion, despite her earlier refusal to see her again?
Lulabelle had warned Annie never to return, but when Annie arrives pregnant and abandoned, Lulabelle recognizes the danger. She arranges the illegal abortion because she believes that childbirth is equally dangerous—her own mother died in childbirth. She says, “Birthing a baby is dangerous, too” (Chapter 38). She helps Annie out of a pragmatic care that puts survival above her own rules.

3. What is the significance of the rose garden Lulabelle plants?
The rose garden is a memorial to her mother Hortense, whose spirit haunts a broken-down lean-to. Lulabelle hopes the garden will give Hortense “somewhere nice to be,” but the spirit continues to roam the lean-to. The garden symbolizes Lulabelle’s attempt to control and beautify grief, yet the past cannot be erased. The roses contrast with the ugliness of the brothel and sharecropping history.

4. Why does Lulabelle refuse to have children or let men near her?
Lulabelle’s mother died giving birth to twins, and one of her younger twin brothers was blamed as a “born murderer.” Lulabelle has chosen celibacy and childlessness to avoid repeating that tragedy. She tells Annie, “Mother Nature has been chasing me since I was eleven years old and that bitch ain’t finna catch me” (Chapter 8). She protects herself by rejecting both romantic and biological motherhood.

5. How does Lulabelle’s relationship with her twin sister Lurelia influence her actions?
Lulabelle and Lurelia share the trauma of their mother’s death and the labor of running the land. Lulabelle is more cynical and practical, while Lurelia is religious and hopeful. Their bickering reveals deep love. Lulabelle protects Lurelia by taking on the “dirty” work of the brothel. The bond with Lurelia is the only stable relationship in her life, grounding her in family history and mutual dependence.

For more on the novel’s ending, visit the Ending Explained, and for further discussion, see the Questions and Answers page.