Ankle Mills

The now-shuttered textile mill owned by the town's founding family was once the centerpiece of the Ankelwood's prosperity , but now symbolizes both the town's decline and the spirit of rapacious capitalism that brought it on. In its heyday, most of the adult town members would have either worked there themselves or have had loved ones who did, like Greenie and Irene's parents, whose working-class lives were the backbone of the community. The abandonment of the mill by the Ankle Brothers was equal to their abandoning the town they had built through the labor of its people now also abandoned without their earned benefits, and Irene makes clear that the town almost did not survive the loss of its economic engine. Both Irene's and Luce"s mothers have substance abuse issues that developed out of the despair and destitution brought on by the conditions ion the...