During the course of their relationship, Mary Lynn and Jeremiah had often discussed race as a concept, as a foreign country they occasionally visited, or as an enemy that existed outside their house, as a destructive force they could fight against as a couple, as a family. But race was also a constant presence, a house-guest and permanent tenant who crept around all the rooms in their shared lives, opening drawers, stealing utensils, and small articles of clothing, changing the temperature.”
-- Narration  (Story 1, “Assimilation”)

Importance: This quote evokes the book's overall thematic interest in the tensions between whites and Indians. This is because Mary Lynn is an Indian who, as the story begins, has gone to considerable lengths to distance herself from that side of her life, and because Jeremiah is the white man whom Mary Lynn married as part of her efforts and who is perhaps more aware than his wife of just...