Agnes Carter

Agnes is the perspective character in the novel's first section, "1910." She is a wealthy heiress from Boston who uses her financial leverage in order to accumulate a fair amount of clout in the city's arts and education scenes. However, her grip on this authority begins to flag when she marries a husband who turns out to be predatory and abusive, finding her fortune in the irresponsible hands.

Although Agnes works to develop an unfazed front of respectable, high-society femininity, her performance is tested by her husband's indiscretions and the arrival of a glassblower, Ignace Novak, whom Agnes hires out of Bohemia to work for the university. Despite Ignace's frequent interrogation of Agnes' safety and state of mind, Agnes insists that her life and marriage are in a healthy place and ignores Ignace's concerns about her husband. Often times, the pressure placed on Agnes not to acknowledge the...