Family

Throughout the novel, the author traces the Garrett family's life over the course of several generations in order to explore the ways in which family dynamics evolve over time. The opening chapter of the novel is set in 2010 and follows one of Robin and Mercy's grandchildren Serena's experiences. After a visit to Serena’s boyfriend James's parents, Serena and James get into an argument about one another's families. Finding Serena's family's lack of closeness strange, James suggests that "there's some deep dark secret in [her] family's past" (10). Although Serena initially denies James's theory, while Serena is staring out the train window, the narrator says that running into her cousin "had sent a kind of jagged feeling down the center of her chest, a split between the two parts of her world" (20). The conversational and emotional dynamics central to this scene introduce the stakes for the narrative...