Summary

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the three main characters, Madge, Sadie, and Hemp. The perspective shifts from one to the next as the narrator describes their experience after arriving in Chicago. All three moved to the city from elsewhere shortly after the end of the American Civil War. Madge, a black, freeborn young woman, enjoyed the bustle of the city in comparison to life in Brownville, Tennessee. Sadie, recently widowed, was forced to face the city on her own after moving from York, Pennsylvania. She is described as a vessel for the spirits of the dead to communicate with the living. Finally, a former slave freed by the end of the Civil War, Hemp, moved to Chicago from a Hemp Farm in Kentucky in search of his wife and daughter, Annie and Herod. He sought shelter while he searched for work, and the close...