Born a Crime is merely about Trevor Noah’s childhood and adolescence years with some reflections on the culture and history of South Africa. The book includes information about his life including his mother’s.
Trevor’s mother, whose name is Patricia Noah, is born into a Black South African family belonging to the Xhosa tribe. Patricia grows up feeling neglected who is a middle child of a working class single mother. Her parents divorce and her father goes to live with his second wife and new family. She later on is sent to her paternal aunt in a rural area. Patricia is able to get a good education and her traits seem ambitious. She wanted a better life for herself. She begins working as a secretary and becomes frustrated with her family members taking mostly all her money. She moved into an apartment by herself. While there she meets Robert who is a white man that she becomes friends with. Patricia persuades Robert to father her child because she wants to establish a family for herself. She later gives birth to a boy named Trevor who is a mixed-race, light-skinned child. And at that time it was very illegal for people to have intimacy with individuals from different racial classifications, and Trevor was clear evidence of her criminal activity.
Trevor is a rambunctious child who his mother disciplined strictly. Patricia encourages her son to be an independent and curious thinker who thinks critically, thinks for himself, and asks as many questions as he wants. She gave him encouraging and ambitious aspirations.
Patricia meets a mechanic named Abel, who later date and end up getting married. Trevor doesn’t trust his new step-father.
His mother gives birth to Trevor’s half-brother Andrew. Abel doesn’t like Trevor because he spends too much time with his father Robert, so he rarely seems him. Robert later moves away when Trevor is thirteen years old.
Abel later tries to create his own car repair shop which makes him have serious economic problems, and Patricia lends him some help. Due to Abel’s alcoholic issues he becomes to physically abuse Patricia, their pets, and Trevor. Patricia legally divorces Abel but continues to live with him, supporting her income while he continues to drink more heavily. To tie up loose ends; Patricia ends up becoming pregnant again and gives birth to Trevor’s second half-brother named Issac, and leaves Abel for good and remarries. Trevor gets a call because Abel ends up shooting Patricia, she sustained minor injuries. Abel avoids jail time and had only served parole. And Trevor reconnects with his dad, Robert.