“We ate from evening through to near light, or as light as it gets in winter. The fire cast shadows on the walls as the old men picked the bones, then piled them up like ancient tellers of fortune.”

This detail from the feast Bush holds in honor of departing baby Angel gives the reader a taste of life at Adam’s Rib, which is defined by communal rituals and a connection with the lives and beliefs of ancestors. The mention of failing winter light also introduces the reader to the idea that the community lives in harmony with the seasons; they are accepting of winter’s limitations, rather than fighting them.

“It was the north country, the place where water was broken apart by land, land split open by water so that the maps showed places both bound and, if you knew the way in, boundless.”

Hogan creates the impression of the north country’s remote mystery by not referring place wheto the names of colonial American states and instead describing a re land and water are in constant competition. In stating that the place is boundless for those who know how to look, Hogan introduces the reader to the notion of a deeper wisdom than that of cartographers.

“From the ferry, as the fog moved, I saw Fur Island, the place old people still call the navel of the world. It sat above the mirror of water like a land just emerged, created for the first time that morning.”

The clearing fog, which enables Angel to see her future home of Fur Island, is a premonition of mysteries to be unveiled. The almost magical apparition of the island, which seems a new part of creation to Angel, is a prelude to her own rebirth and rediscovery of herself in that place.