Ava Bigtree is the first-person narrator of much of the novel. She is 13 when the narrative begins and has recently lost her mother to cancer. An introspective adolescent, Ava is initially characterized largely through her grief, her feelings of loss, and through the way that she tries to make sense of and move on from the death of her mother.

Although each member of the Bigtree clan is part of both their closely-knit family (who lives and works together) and spends much of their time surrounded by the throngs of tourists who visit Swamplandia!, each character is in some way marked by solitude, and there is a definite sense of isolation and even alienation in the lives of The Chief, Ava, Osceola, and Kiwi. Ava, although already a popular performer and a girl who is invested in her siblings, spends much of her time lost in thought. As park attendance declines and she has more and more free time, she retreats into the escapism of books, but also into memories of her recently deceased mother. She tries to make sense of her mother’s life, and wonders how happy Hilola had really been, married into the Bigtree Family and cut off from the mainland at the young age of 19.