Regina Gottlieb

Regina is the novel’s central character, its narrator and protagonist. As the novel begins, Regina is in her early twenties, starting her first year of graduate school, which means, at that point, she has completed an undergraduate university degree – in other words, that she starts her story already educated. Or rather, what she has been told is educated – her early choices and motivations seem to be motivated by a belief, either conscious or unconscious, that she does not know enough, and wants to know more. Yes, that is the primary reason for graduate school – to learn more about a particular subject of academic interest – but Regina clearly wants to learn more about life. And she does – in other words, she comes of age, a term that refers in general to a maturation in the ways of life, not only in the ways of the mind, or...