Narrator

The unnamed narrator is a woman living in the Camden neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband, Percy. She is likely in her 40s, as she mentions that her recent pregnancy was risky because of her age. The miscarriage occurred six years earlier when she was four months into her pregnancy. It continues to haunt the narrator throughout the novel, particularly when she witnesses scenes of mothers interacting with their children. She has resigned herself to being childless, but she thinks often of how things might have been different, stating at one point, "I think I would have been a good mother...Perhaps this is why the idea of being a mother is difficult to let go of" (197).

When the novel begins, the narrator and Percy own three chickens, which live in a coop behind their house. The chickens serve as proxies for the children the narrator cannot...