Izzy Character Analysis

In “Gaps in the Hickory,” Izzy is Delores’s former wife, Jeanie’s mother-in-law, Jackson’s mother, and Carter and Lucy’s grandmother. She dies shortly before the story’s present, and Carter and Delores take her death especially hard. When Jackson was a young boy, Izzy discovered that her husband Denver (now Delores) was transgender. She responded with compassion and insisted that Delores leave their rural Mississippi town for her own safety. She also kept Delores’s gender identity a secret—not out of shame, but to protect Delores from friends and family (like Jackson) who would never accept her. Izzy would regularly visit Delores in New Orleans, and they remained good friends until Izzy’s death. She leaves the family house in Mississippi to Delores in her will. It’s Izzy who first recognizes that Carter, too, is transgender, and she’s the only family member Carter knows who actively seems to accept him for who he is. Izzy brings Carter’s transgender identity to Jeanie’s attention and pleads with her to take Carter to live in New Orleans with “Denver” (now Delores), where Carter will be safe.