that this occurs "as though [Doriana is] cognizant of Carmolina's absence". The police discover Carmolina and return her to her household, where Carmolina becomes ill with a malady similar to Doriana's. The final part takes place nine years after the previous chapter. In Part VI, "Summer 1958", Carmolina and Doria have a ritual ceremony. Bona wrote that "In this symbolic scene, Carmolina receives a legacy of selfhood." The immigrant community in Carmolina's neighborhood is forced to move away in the book's epilogue. Characters Carmolina BellaCasa The main character Doria BellaCasa Carmolina's paternal grandmother, Doria, lives in a residence across from Carmolina's house. She grew up in a town near Naples with her parents and her sister Sabatina. In the novel the current events and the memories of Doria's life in Italy are mixed together. Mary Jo Bona, author of "Broken Images, Broken Lives: Carmolina's Journey in Tina De Rosa's Paper Fish," wrote that Carmolina "uses her grandmother's memories of the homeland as the subjective topography for her own fertile imagination" and that the interspersing of the past and present "reinforces the usefulness of the past for" Carmolina. Doriana BellaCasa Carmolina's older sister, Doriana, has an illness. The family speculates about the reasons why the older sister is ill, but the novel never states the cause of the illness. In the novel, Doriana does not recover from the illness, she does not die from the illness, and she is not sent to a sanatorium. Ann LoLordo of the Baltimore Sun describes the sister as "a strange spirit hovering in the family flat". Bona wrote that "Though it is true that Italians in America have been traditionally resistant to the idea of institutionalizing family members, the sick characters" present in several other novels "do not remain an integral, compelling part of the text as the first daughter, Doriana, does in Paper Fish." LoLordo wrote that "DeRosa never fully explores the effect of this damaged child on Carmolina" and that "I understand that this family can't articulate their loss, but DeRosa can and doesn't." Marco BellaCasa Marco is Carmolina's father. He is a police officer. Sarah BellaCasa Sarah is Carmolina's mother. She is Lithuanian American. Publication When she was 17, Tina De Rosa was, along with her family, forced to move from her Chicago residence. Two years after she had to move, De Rosa's grandmother died. Her father, a police officer, died two