ConaLee

ConaLee is the main character of the novel. The chapters marked with her name are written from her first person point of view. At the start of the novel, ConaLee is 12 years old. For as long as she can remember, ConaLee has had to play “mother to her mother,” Eliza, and to her three younger siblings (133). When the Civil War first broke out, ConaLee was just a baby. Her father, Ephraim Connolly, joined the conflict and disappeared from the family’s life for good. Therefore, ConaLee has no concept of her paternity throughout her childhood and coming of age. She rather learns to define home and family according to her life on the Virginia frontier with Eliza, her granny neighbor Dearbhla, and later with Papa and Eliza’s three new babies.

Because ConaLee is still a child when Papa infiltrates her and Eliza’s lives, she does not...