Ruth Stone, the narrator

Ruth is the first person narrator, dark-haired, thin, tall, awkward, and shy. She is haunted by her mother's suicide and her grandmother's sorrow and her grandfather dreams and his paintings of fantastical landscapes. Ruth imagines the interior life of her relatives because she must. They never share with her their inner thoughts. Ruth is a close and cautious observer. For most of her life she and her younger sister, Lucille, existed in a state of watchful anxiety, knowing they were unwanted burdens in the care of a depressed mother, elderly grandmother, and hysterical aunts. Ruth lives mainly in her imagination with her sister as her only friend. She goes through the motions of daily life doing whatever the adults around her require because she cannot imagine doing otherwise. She and Lucille are always living on sufferance, and Ruth constantly fears that the current bad situation...