Content Warning: This section contains depictions of anti-LGBTQIA+ bias and abuse.



“She hung out the largest sheets on the windiest days. She wanted the Mormons to knock on the door. At election time in a Labour mill town she put a picture of the Conservative candidate in the window.”

Jeanette’s mother is very combative and is ready to argue with anyone over her beliefs. Even as a child, Jeanette recognizes this not only with her mother’s preparations to argue with religious competitors but also with her political opposition to the town around them.

“And so it was that on a particular day, some time later, she followed a star until it came to settle above an orphanage, and in that place was a crib, and in that crib, a child. A child with too much hair.”

Jeanette’s mother wants a child to devote to God and does so by raising Jeanette to be a missionary. She sees a holy purpose to being Jeanette’s mother and, even in the story of her adoption, describes it as a holy moment comparable to the three kings finding the baby Jesus.

“I discovered that everything in the natural world was a symbol of the Great Struggle between good and evil. ‘Consider the mamba,’ said my mother. ‘Over short distances the mamba can outrun a horse.’ And she drew the race on a sheet of paper. She meant that in the short term, evil can triumph, but never for long.”

Throughout the novel, Jeanette often struggles with the religious conceptions of good and evil, since her sexuality is deemed a sin, yet she finds no issue with it. From an early age, she is taught to think of good and evil as always in a race in which good will eventually triumph. This framing is meant to show her that temptations are temporary and should be ignored.