Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… in a small Pennsylvania town, in the Gothic Revival house her father painstakingly restored and decorated to be period-accurate.
Profession… student. As a college student, Alison begins to discover who she is, and who her father is, illuminating some of the root causes of the tension that pervaded her entire childhood, and still colors her relationship with her father.
Interests… drawing and journaling. Now a successful comic artist, even as a child Alison kept obsessive record of her life through journals and drawing. She also spends a considerable amount of time reading feminist and lesbian authors.
Relationship Status… depends on the time period, but Alison’s revelation that she is a lesbian provides an unexpected point of both conflict and connection with her father.
Challenge… grappling with her father’s secret homosexuality and his unexpected suicide. In the wake of his death, Alison wants to come to terms with the complicated impact that her father had on their whole family.
Personality… creative and introspective. Alison’s reflections on her family and father are both rambling and incisive, filled with literary and mythic references. She is intelligent but also a little neurotic, and she embraces both in a quest to understand her childhood. While she is often plagued with self-doubt, she is also remarkably open and honest about her thoughts and experiences.
