Charlotte

Charlotte is one of the novel’s central characters. She is a 71-year-old widow who lives in Savannah, Georgia. She is somewhat estranged from her three adult children, and she feels lonely after her best friend, Minnie, dies. She decides to enter a travel contest, and she invites her children to come on the ensuing trip with her. The trip is a cruise to several countries around the Mediterranean Sea. Charlotte spends the trip trying to reconnect with her children. She also hopes to have a romantic encounter during the trip, as she feels lonely and sexually unfulfilled.

Charlotte worries that she might not have been a good mother. Her husband, Winston, died of suicide, and she had to raise the children on her own for several years. Also, when Winston was still alive, Charlotte’s marriage was generally unfulfilling. During the trip, Charlotte forms a rapport with...