Ava Johnson is the protagonist and first-person narrator. She is a dynamic character whose experiences with her home and family gradually change her over the course of her first summer back in her hometown, Idlewild. Ava has one sister, Joyce Mitchell, whom she moves in with at the start of the novel. When Ava was young, her parents moved to Idlewild to start a new life. Her father died in his sleep, and her mother died by suicide a few years later. Ava learned to rely on Joyce and Joyce’s husband, Mitch, for parental support in the wake of her parents’ deaths.

In 1984, Ava moved away from Idlewild to create a new life for herself in Atlanta, Georgia. Having heard that “if you were young and black and had any sense, Atlanta was the place to be” (7), Ava hoped that the city would grant her freedom and independence. The city temporarily gave her this desired sense of autonomy. She developed a life for herself, opening and operating her own successful hair salon. Her work granted Ava both purpose and community.