Amanda

Amanda is the protagonist of the novel. She is Nina’s mother, and she spends the duration of the novel in a hospital bed talking to David, she describes the series of events which lead to her being admitted to the hospital as she converses with David. However, Amanda’s worsening health leads to her inability to recall certain details, and her inability to discern reality from her imagination. As Amanda loses her mind to the illness, her sense of time is also lost, so Amanda never truly understands how she got sick.

Amanda’s role is crucial in this novel. Firstly, she is the primary narrator, so the novel is written from her perspective of events. Furthermore, Amanda serves as David’s only method of discovering how the illness came about. Even though the cause of illness is never revealed, the importance of discovering what the cause...