Virginia A. ("Vinnie") Miner

A fifty-four year-old Ivy League professor of children's literature, Vinnie is the novel's chief protagonist. We meet her en route to London for six months of funded research on "A Comparative Investigation of the Play-Rhymes of British and American Children." A seasoned international traveler, she knows how to minimize the discomforts of travel, while getting everything she figures she has coming to her. Vinnie has a cadre of academic and aristocratic friends in England and would move there permanently if it were economically possible.

Raised in comfort in a pleasurable, stimulating semi-rural setting, Vinnie found herself at puberty transplanted to New York City, where she withered, short, pimpled, flat-chested and plain. Compensating by keeping up with fashion over decades only frustrated her. Vinnie probably attended university in New England, for she has the accent and manners of that region. Having earned a Ph.D., she...