Alice Shipley

Alice Shipley, one of the novel’s two narrators and protagonists, is a 20-year-old woman with a haunted past that seems to follow her no matter where she goes. She was orphaned as a teenager during an accidental house fire. Her father was a wealthy British man and her mother was an American who attended Bennington College in Vermont. After their death, she is raised by her brother’s sister, her Aunt Maude, a protective but ultimately emotionally distant woman who is at a loss to deal with Alice’s deep grief, and who even considers institutionalizing her niece. At 17, though she is far from bookish, Alice chooses to leave England and attend her mother’s alma mater.

It is there that she meets Lucy, her roommate and physical and mental foil. Alice is “petite” (25), with an almost childish figure that she dislikes. Lucy describes her in...