Identity

The author uses Anna's mother's death, her separation from her husband, and her discovery of her estranged father's diary in order to launch her main character on a renewed journey towards self-realization. Though Anna is middle-aged in the narrative present, at the start of the novel, she begins to realize how little she knows about the people she came from and thus about the person she is. A few months after her mother dies, Anna says that she avoided going through Bronwen's things. When she realizes Bronwen's trunk might hold "information about [her] father," she decides to explore its contents (5). Discovering Francis Aggrey's diary ushers her over a once-invisible threshold towards self-exploration. Initially, reading the diary fascinates and intrigues Anna. Immersed in her father's accounts, she feels herself uncovering the truth of his identity, and with it, new clues to her own identity.

Over the course...