Lace is one of the main characters of the novel. When she was young, she never felt like she belonged in West Virginia and dreamt of moving away to really experience the world outside her hometown. However, she got pregnant at 18, dropped out of college to marry her 15-year-old boyfriend Jimmy, and has since felt like she has lost her dreams. Many years later, she becomes an activist protesting what the mining company is doing to the land. In this way, she finds her identity in the very place she wanted nothing to do with. Ironically, now even when presented with option of leaving the mountain to live in Raleigh, Lace refuses to abandon the place she feels like she has to defend.

Lace is a loving mother, although she often treats her eldest child, Bant, like a friend more than a daughter, venting to her about Jimmy and the environmental devastation. She does little to prevent Bant from recapitulating her youthful mistakes. Lace also goes back and forth between feeling love for Jimmy and hating him. Although she has always been deeply attracted to Jimmy on a physical level, she hates his passivity. Until the end of the novel, Lace is unable to empathize with the fact that Jimmy became a father and a provider at 15 and so never got a chance to grow up; instead, she resents his immaturity, feeling like she’s had to grow up and mother everybody.