At the beginning of the novel, Lucy is the 12-year-old daughter of Asian parents living in the Northern California gold rush territory during the 1850s. The events of the novel are generally seen through her eyes. She and her sibling were both born in America, as was her father, but their Asian features identify them as foreign outcasts to the people they encounter. The family’s rootless existence in pursuit of gold has given Lucy a longing for a place to call home.

Lucy’s quest is unfulfilled by the end of the book. She remains an enigma to the reader and a mystery to herself. Her perceptions of her sibling and parents alter radically as her perspective on past events changes. One can assume that her struggle to truly know her family members has affected her ability to define herself. Throughout the novel Lucy is plagued by the question of who she is and where she belongs, but she never examines these quandaries thoroughly enough to find answers. Instead, she repeats a pattern of degrading acts in service of others, like devoting herself to burying Ba though it means consigning herself and Sam to hardship and homelessness, and prostituting to pay off Sam’s debt, adopting various personas to please her customers.