Edward Mayhew

Edward is one of the book’s two central characters. At the time the novel is primarily set (1962), Edward is 22 years old and is a historian. He is newly married to 22-year-old Florence, who is a musician. While Edward and Florence are both escaping unhappy home lives, Edward is desperate to consummate their marriage, while Florence is repulsed by the ideas of sex in general and of sex with Edward in particular. What makes the similarities and conflicts between these two characters particularly poignant is that Edward is as much in love with Florence as she is with him: he is awakened to more of himself, more of humanity, and more of the world as the result of his relationship with her, and his eventual relationship with her relatively well-off family. On some level, he realizes and is grateful for all the opportunities she brings into his...