“They didn’t need to feel sorry for me. I was nothing like Mother. After all, Mother was only half of the equation.”

Josie’s believes that she must have a respectable father somewhere who she can be like. She believes that if she has a dad who is successful and admirable, then there is hope for her to turn out that way too. Her disdain for her mother and hope for a father of better status is illustrated as she thinks of how others pity her because of her mother’s prostitution.

“‘Decisions, they shape our destiny.’ Without opening the book, he began to recite from David Copperfield. ‘Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else…’ I nodded and finished it with him. ‘These pages must show.’”

David Copperfield is a motif representing the idea that we can create our own destiny. Josie’s sense of connection to Hearne is established in this interaction, as he cites his knowledge of the novel aloud. Hearne’s comment that he is self-made like Copperfield inspires Josie to be the hero of her own life and find a way out of New Orleans.

“So the game continued, and for years I added names to the list, imagining that 50 percent of me was somehow respectable instead of rotten.”

Josie feels that because her mom is “rotten,” she must have a father who is “respectable.” In the game of adding fathers to her list, she rejects her mother and sets herself apart from her one present parent. In shaping her father’s mystery identity, she crafts him into whoever she needs him to be. She thinks that her lineage is partially responsible for who she will become, so she needs her father to be someone good.