The Narrator

Curious, inventive, and well informed, the narrator is a major character in this novel. The distinctly female voice is as gossipy as a young hairdresser is, but as wise as an old Auntie. The entertaining, insightful and lyrical narrator knows and sees much more than any one character, yet she is not aware of everything. She admits initially misunderstanding the role Felice plays in the lives of the Traces. Alternately disembodied ("I have no muscles") and concrete ("my feet"), she is pervasive yet completely un-godlike. Speculations on the narrator's identity range from goddess and musical instrument, to jazz itself, with the spirit of the book being most likely.

Violet Trace

Fifty-years-old and toothpick-thin, with short, smooth hair, Violet Trace has lost any hips, butt, and chest she once had. Nevertheless, she is beautiful, with boot-black skin. Violet works as an unlicensed hairdresser, "doing heads" in clients' homes...