Anna Kerrigan

Anna Kerrigan is the daughter of Eddie Kerrigan, a union lackey, and Agnes Kerrigan, a dancer. She also has a younger sister named Lydia, who is crippled. Her family lives in Brooklyn. Anna is bold, capable, innovative, and resistant to the limitations placed on American women during the 1930s and 1940s. When the novel begins, she is 11 years old, and she frequently accompanies her father on his business excursions. She is also fiercely devoted to her younger sister. As Anna gets older, her father stops taking her with him on business, and their relationship begins to grow distant.

During the novel's main action, Anna is 19 years old, and her father has been missing for five years. She is among the first wave of women to take jobs at the Brooklyn Naval Yard during World War II. At first, she works in a shop measuring ship parts. She...