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Consolata (Connie) Sosa
Mavis is the first woman to come to the Convent. Her husband Frank abuses and degrades her, causing Mavis to become insecure and paranoid. She believes that her children have sided with Frank against her, and she becomes more distraught after killing her infant twins, Merle and Pearl, by leaving them in Frank’s Cadillac. Eventually, Mavis steals the Cadillac and flees Frank, leaving her children behind. She finds her way to the Convent, where she becomes more independent and self-assured. When Gigi arrives, the two form an instant dislike of each other that generates tension in the Convent for years. At the end of the book, however, Connie’s leadership brings all the women together, including Mavis and Gigi. Though Mavis gave up her role as a mother in order to find herself, she still thinks of the children she left behind, and she regularly hears Merle and Pearl’s disembodied laughter in the halls of the Convent.
Mavis Albright Quotes in Paradise
The Paradise quotes below are all either spoken by Mavis Albright or refer to Mavis Albright. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Mavis Quotes
When he pulled her nightgown up, he threw it over her face, and she let that mercy be. She had misjudged. Again. He was going to do this first and then the rest. The other children would be behind the door, snickering […]. The rest of the night she waited, not closing her eyes for a second. Frank’s sleep was sound and she would have slipped out of bed (as soon as he had not smothered or strangled her) and opened the door except for the breathing beyond it.
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Mavis felt her stupidity close in on her head like a dry sack. A grown woman who could not cross the country. Could not make a plan that accommodated more than twenty minutes. […] Too rattle-minded to open a car’s window so babies could breathe. […] Frank was right. From the very beginning he had been absolutely right about her: she was the dumbest bitch on the planet.
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Mavis frowned at the pecans. “No,” she said. “Think of something else I can do to help. Shelling that stuff would make me crazy.”
“No it wouldn’t. […] Look at your nails. Strong, curved like a bird’s––perfect pecan hands. Fingernails like that take the meat out whole every time. Beautiful hands, yet you say you can’t. Make you crazy. Makes me crazy to see good nails go to waste.”
Later, [Mavis watched] her suddenly beautiful hands moving at the task […].
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Consolata Quotes
That is how the loud dreaming began. How the stories rose in that place. Half-tales and the never-dreamed escaped from their lips to soar high above guttering candles, shifting dusts from crates and bottles. And it was never important to know who said the dream or whether it had meaning. In spite of or because their bodies ache, they step easily into the dreamer’s tale.
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Mavis Albright Character Timeline in Paradise
The timeline below shows where the character Mavis Albright appears in Paradise. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Mavis
A patronizing journalist interviews Mavis Albright, a grieving mother, about the recent deaths of her twin daughters Merle and Pearl....
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After the reporter leaves, Mavis cleans up. She longs to be in the Cadillac, where she lost the only children...
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Later, Frank startles Mavis by getting into bed with her. His presence stirs a “familiar fright” in Mavis as...
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Mavis has not planned where to flee to, so she drives to the house of an...
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Mavis tells Birdie that her children intend to kill her on Frank’s orders. Birdie is shaken...
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During the long drive to California, Mavis picks up hitchhikers to help cover the costs of gas and food. These hitchhikers are...
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Mavis walks down roads for hours until she finds the Convent. She meets a woman sitting...
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...well-dressed, dark-skinned woman comes into the Convent looking for Connie, and she pauses to admire Mavis’s work with the pecans. Connie returns and introduces the woman as Mrs. Soane Morgan. Soane...
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Mavis decides to spend the night at the Convent, partly because it is dark and she...
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Grace
Mavis returns after a month away to find Gigi sunbathing naked outside the Convent. The two...
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Seneca
Seneca lies uncomfortably in the Convent, trying to make herself as agreeable as possible to Mavis and Gigi. She has always tried to please, including in her relationship the abusive Eddie...
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Divine
...Deek maintaining control through the silent conversations they eternally conduct with each other. Soon, however, Mavis drives up in her Cadillac, bringing with her Gigi, Seneca, and a girl the townspeople...
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...and though Pallas was wealthy and happy, she felt a connection to the woman. As Mavis and Gigi bicker about K.D., Seneca notices that Pallas is shivering despite the heat, and...
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Back in the present, Mavis and Gigi’s argument about the wedding escalates into a physical fight that forces Mavis to...
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...back. When the women turn her away, she screams at them and bites Pallas. Later, Mavis explains to Pallas that Connie delivered Arnette’s baby at the Convent, but Arnette didn’t want...
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Consolata
...and a depression born of self-loathing. The other women try to help her, but besides Mavis (who has been at the Convent for eight years), Connie has trouble telling the women...
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...Connie “hardly notice[s] the things she [is] losing,” including her first language. By the time Mavis arrives, the other nun is gone, and Connie’s only concern is caring for Mary Magna.
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Before Mavis’s arrival and 10 years after her affair with Deek, Connie faints from a dizzy spell;...
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...to glow. Mary Magna finally dies when Connie is 54, and despite the support of Mavis and Grace, she feels utterly untethered to the world.
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...Gigi thinks back to her days as an activist and hates herself for giving up. Mavis goes shopping in Ruby and buys gifts for Merle and Pearl. Five years ago, she...
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Lone
...various incidents to highlight the Convent women’s evil: their behavior at K.D. and Arnette’s wedding, Mavis and Gigi’s fight on the road, Sweetie’s claim that they poisoned her, and Sweetie’s claim...
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...up to the Convent to collect the bodies, he finds the place entirely empty. Even Mavis’s Cadillac is missing.
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Save-Marie
Mavis appears to Sally, her eldest daughter who is now an adult. Sally reveals how scared...
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