Memory and the Past

The author uses Miriam’s, Joan’s, and Mya’s move to Memphis, Tennessee at the start of the novel in order to instigate the characters’ encounters with the past. After avoiding their family’s home in Memphis for many years, the three women return to the home when Miriam decides to flee her tumultuous marriage with Jax. Because Joan has not been to the house since she was a toddler, when she arrives in Chapter 1, she says, “My memories of staying here felt vague and far away—I’d been only three years old, and it felt like a lifetime ago—but now I remembered . . . By knocking, by opening the door, I knew we’d be letting out a whole host of ghosts” (4, 5). Joan has yet to identify her reasons for feeling unsettled by the Memphis home. However, her physiological response to...