Heartless

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and cursing.

Willa is one of the main characters and first-person narrators of the novel. The chapters titled with her first name are written from her perspective and offer insight into her private thoughts and fears. In the narrative present, she is 25 years old. Her father is a famous guitarist and performer, her mother is a sex therapist, and her brother is a business owner and burgeoning musician. For years, Willa has felt that she has “[n]o idea where [she’s] going” because matters like “[j]obs, men, [and] material shit” don’t seem “permanent for [her] yet” (38). While Willa’s father thinks that she is fundamentally restless, Willa’s mother believes that her daughter “just [hasn’t] found a place [she] want[s] to settle down yet” (38). At the start of the novel, Willa decides to spend the summer in Chestnut Springs to get away from her life in the city, where she makes a living bartending at her brother’s bar. Her brother is temporarily closing the bar, and this development grants Willa a reprieve from the status quo; she takes the opportunity to pursue new experiences and explore different options for her future.