The Lost Bookshop

The second of the three protagonists, Martha has piercing blue eyes, pale skin, bleached blonde hair, and the look “of an angel fallen on hard times” (22). She’s depicted as fragile, particularly from Henry’s perspective but even from her own. However, the fact that she has escaped an abusive husband complicates this: She’s fragile and afraid because of the abuse, but she’s also strong because she found the courage to leave.

In some ways, Martha is the opposite of Opaline. She’s often incapable of standing up for herself and prone to indecision, sometimes delaying making choices until she realizes that “[c]hoosing not to do something was still a choice” (151). However, she and Opaline also mirror each other in their constant searches for love and belonging and in their strength to leave abusive situations.

Martha is the central focus of the plot’s elements of magical realism. Not only does she live in, and eventually inherit, the mysterious bookshop, but she also has the unexplained ability to read people’s histories and feelings. In addition, she mysteriously receives the lines of Brontë’s lost manuscript fully formed in her mind, which she’s compelled to tattoo on her back, and she finds strange tree branches and roots growing through her basement apartment, which seem to appear by magic almost overnight and apparently leave her gifts of books.

The final protagonist is Henry, a PhD student from England, who has come to Dublin to do research for his thesis, including looking for a mysterious bookshop and the lost Brontë manuscript. His search, which borders on obsessive, links him to Opaline and her own search for the Brontë manuscript. His narrative is the vehicle by which Opaline’s story eventually comes to light and Martha discovers her lineage and her potential. Although Henry first encounters the strange, disappearing bookshop without Martha, it’s largely only through Martha that he accesses the story’s elements of magical realism.

Henry is motivated by his own past with an abusive parent, a motif that links all three of the major characters. Although he initially views Martha as the fragile one, he’s just as in need of support and love. In addition, like Opaline and Martha, he’s searching for a sense of purpose and belonging. Throughout the story, he believes that finding the Brontë manuscript and making a name for himself in the rare book business is the only way he can access that sense of purpose and belonging. However, his growing relationship with Martha leads him to conclude that these things truly come through love and companionship, leading him to announce that he “already found everything he wanted” (425) with Martha, even before they finally find the bookshop.

The primary antagonist of Opaline’s story is Lyndon. Opaline believes for most of the story that Lyndon is her much-older brother, who returned from World War I scarred and cruel. However, near the end of the story, she discovers that he is in fact her father, and the people she thought were her parents were her grandparents. This revelation explains why Lyndon thinks Opaline owes him her obedience in all things, including the arranged marriage that she escapes.

His actions and speeches throughout demonstrate that he’s at heart a cruel, self-centered person with no concept of love or compassion and a need to control everyone around him. This is true not just in his treatment of Opaline but also in his past as a World War I commander who unjustly executed many soldiers for cowardice. This need for control, especially over his own image, as well as an inability to face his wrongdoing, leads to his death by suicide at the end, after Opaline reveals his past to a journalist.

Opaline’s on-again-off-again lover, Armand is a complex character who both helps Opaline and injures her. A French-speaking man, he’s originally from Morocco but lives in Paris. Opaline describes him as handsome and charming in a mischievous way. Although he cares for her and even helps save her from Lyndon in Paris, it becomes increasingly clear that his actions are largely self-serving. Opaline eventually concludes that he does nothing unless it benefits him in some way, and his business as a rare book dealer will always come first.

In his employment as a book dealer, he’s “ruthless, single-minded, and greedy” (201). When Opaline reveals to him that she has found Brontë’s second manuscript, he becomes misogynistic and vindictive, even calling her a “whore” when she refuses to hand the manuscript over to his control. Because of his self-centered, hateful behavior, he never learns that Opaline is pregnant with his child.

After Martha leaves her abusive husband, she works as a live-in housekeeper for Madame Eileen Bowden, the owner of the house at 12 Ha’penny Lane. The location of this house is also where the mysterious bookshop at 11 Ha’penny Lane should be. Martha describes Madame Bowden as old and eccentric, acting like a glamorous old-world actress who chose a role in life years ago and simply never stopped performing it. Although she sometimes acts oblivious, she seems to know more about everything, including Martha and the vanishing bookshop, than she’ll admit to. She supports and encourages Martha in her own gruff way and even makes certain that Henry is good enough for Martha before accepting him.

As the narrative progresses, it appears that the only people who ever interact with Madame Bowden are Martha, Henry, and Shane. When Madame Bowden disappears, Henry speculates that she might be a ghost. Martha disagrees with this assessment but suspects that Madame Bowden is still in the house somehow. Madame Bowden is clearly part of the plot’s magical realism aspects. The book never explains her exact nature but implies that she may be a manifestation of the building itself.

Martha’s estranged husband, Shane, is an antagonist in Martha’s storyline. They started dating while Martha was attending a technical college. He quickly grew jealous, controlling, and abusive, but Martha settled with these issues because of her love for him and hoped that he’d become the charming person she originally fell in love with. When they marry, Shane isolates her from her family and friends and breaks down her self-esteem until she believes she deserves the abuse.

When Shane finds Martha at her new home, a struggle ensues that leads to him falling down the stairs to his death. Martha remains uncertain whether he fell or Madame Bowden pushed him. However, Madame Bowden mysteriously takes care of the body, and Shane is later found in the river. Neither the police nor Shane’s family and friends ever suspect that Martha had anything to do with his death. Martha’s mother declares, “I’m glad he’s dead” (215). Shane is one of several male characters throughout the story who are alcohol dependent and have controlling personalities.

Although Martha’s mother never has a name in the narrative and appears only a few times, she’s vital to Martha’s history and character development. Throughout Martha’s life, her mother has been nonspeaking, for reasons that are initially unclear. Martha fears that it may be a sign that her husband (Martha’s father) abuses or silences her. It’s therefore a shock when Martha’s mother speaks for the first time after Shane’s funeral, saying that she’s glad he’s dead.

Later, she comes to visit Martha at Madame Bowden’s house, having fully recovered her voice, and reveals her history and the reason she lost her voice. This backstory is the final connection between Martha’s narrative and Opaline’s. Martha’s mother reveals that her mother, Rose, was adopted as a baby by parents who were hard and unloving. When Rose left to find her birth family, she died in a train accident, leaving her adoptive parents to raise Martha’s mother. Martha and Henry then learn that Rose was Opaline’s baby, stolen and sold while she was unjustly incarcerated. Thus, Martha’s mother connects the parallel plotlines.

Although Henry’s family appears in only a handful of chapters, they’re important to his character. Henry’s history with a father who has alcoholism is a vital part of Henry’s character development. His father’s treatment is the primary cause for Henry’s drive for recognition and belonging. The emotional damage he received during his upbringing likewise informs his need for love and support. Henry’s mother and sister are important too, despite their brief appearances, because they encourage him to reconcile with his father. His sister Lucinda’s pregnancy is why Henry is delayed in returning to Dublin, instigating Martha’s emotional withdrawal from their budding relationship.