Summary

Eliza Ripple begins to tell the story in chapter 1 of how she met her husband, Peter, two months after he is killed in a bar fight. She is “handed…over to Peter” (3) by her father when she is 18 and he is 38, despite the fact that she was in love with an Irish boy her own age named Liam Callaghan, which her parents disapprove of. Shortly after they marry, they go to Monterey, California to find gold, where Eliza is expected to be “his servant” (4). Peter finds nothing in California. After his funeral, a woman named Mrs. Parks comes to Eliza, offering to help – she runs a brothel. Eliza goes and begins to work as a prostitute (6). With that brief background, the narrator brings the action back to the present day – April 1852. She goes to Mrs. Parks and learns that a man named Elijah...