Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the novel’s depictions of racism.

Although Verble’s cast of characters represents a variety of different racial, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds, each of them contributes to the novel’s thematic interest in the lasting effects of grief and trauma. In particular, the characters of James Shackleford and Clive Lovett demonstrate the profound effects of war and violence on the human psyche. For Glendale Park manager James Shackleford and his wife, the tragic deaths of six of their ten children lead them to profound and lasting grief. Although Shackleford’s baby daughters have been dead for years by the time the novel begins, they “still [ruin] his sleep by crying in their cribs at night and awakening him so thoroughly that he invariably check[s] their room, and then often [has] to read until light” (53). The use of the active, present tense verbs “crying” and “awakening” in this passage demonstrates Shackleford’s ongoing experience of grief, which allows him to feel that his deceased daughters still have an active presence in his home. For Shackleford’s wife May, grief takes the form of a firm belief in the possibility of life after death.