Maya

One of the main characters of the novel, Maya is ninety-eight and an elder of the City. Almost always in contact with the spirit world, Maya connects the past of the history of both her family and the City with the present. She is the grandmother of Bird and the elder of the House of Black Dragon.

Throughout much of the novel, Maya acts as a storyteller, relating episodes from the past, rather than as an active protagonist in the City's present. This does change at the novel's climax when she surrenders to the General. This is an act that precipitates the final showdown between Bird and the City residents and the army. Maya's role in the novel is to primarily connect the past and the present. Active in the Anti-Vietnam War Movement in the 1960s and part of that decade's counterculture, Maya serves to ground the reader...