CHARACTERS Cecilia At age thirteen, Cecilia is the youngest of the Lisbon girls. She is mystical, shy and is a dreamer; completely out of touch with reality. She always wears an antique wedding dress with a shorn hem. She enjoys painting, writing in her journal, listening to Celtic music, and is interested in astrology and spiritualism. She attempts to end her life by slitting her wrists during one of her marathon baths. On her second attempt she succeeds; three weeks after her first attempt, by jumping out of her bedroom window. Lux Lux, age fourteen, is the beautiful, defiant, sexually precocious Lisbon sister and is the only one of the sisters who accords with the neighbourhood boys’ image of the girls. She listens to rock music and is a secret smoker since the age of twelve. Even among her sisters Lux is strikingly individual; she has several clandestine relationships. Her adventures have wildly varying consequences for her sisters' lives; she keeps the group of boys in touch with the girls, but her acts also result in the sisters' confinement to the house. Bonnie Fifteen-year-old Bonnie is the serious and serene middle child of the five Lisbon sisters. She has a sallow complexion and is a foot taller than any of her sisters. She is quiet, docile, skittish. She makes a homage of candles in Cecilia's room, and, as the house decays, begins appearing on the porch before dawn to recite the rosary. Mary Mary, age sixteen, is the excessively fashionable and fastidious Lisbon girl. Her hair is the darkest of the sisters. After Cecilia's act Mary seems to stay the most level headed. As the house declines, she attempts to maintain her appearance, wearing bright sweaters to collect the mail. Therese At seventeen, Therese is the oldest of the Lisbon sisters. She has a heavy face with the cheeks and eyes of a cow, and is physically more awkward than her sisters. She is the brainy one and reads textbooks, attends science conventions, grows seahorses and uses a ham radio.