Tookie is the novel’s central protagonist. An Ojibwe (or Chippewa) woman, Tookie is the primary first-person narrator, and her internal conflicts reveal Erdrich’s themes and symbols. She grew up in an unstable home environment but found joy at an early age through literature. Her passion for literature helps her endure the trauma of her incarceration, though the lingering effects of her childhood and her prison sentence affected her mental health for years. A resilient and dynamic character, Tookie transforms her life after prison and chooses love despite her resentments. Her deep capacity for love and empathy forms a bridge between her self-doubts and her present. Tookie avoids her past, but doing so is sometimes detrimental to her character development. She doesn’t consider herself spiritual until Flora’s ghost begins haunting her. Tookie’s reckoning with her past resentments and awareness of life’s unpredictability, along with her beautiful but complex relationships with other people, provide the novel’s central plotlines and character development.

A secondary character who provides tension, mystery, and symbolism throughout the novel, Flora’s ghost represents the ceaseless cultural appropriation that white Americans have committed against Indigenous Americans. Flora’s ghost seems harmless at first but then increases tension in the novel when she’s clearly trying to reach out to Tookie.