Lila Mae Watson

Lila Mae Watson is the novel’s protagonist. She is the first black female elevator inspector for a fictionalized city’s Department of Elevator Inspectors. She has a 100% accuracy rate, the highest in the department’s history, and she is an Intuitionist: that is, she uses sensations and emotions to examine an elevator rather than physically inspecting it. Although Lila Mae is extremely successful professionally, her personal life is lonely and guarded. She lives alone in a small apartment and does not socialize with the other inspectors. Although Lila Mae has lived in the city for years, she grew up in a rural town in the south and moved north to attend the prestigious Institute for Vertical Transport, moving to the city shortly after graduation.

Throughout the novel, Lila Mae serves as a vessel for Whitehead to explore thematic problems within the department, the city, and...