Alice Greer, the first strong women introduced in the novel, serves as a role model for the many other women who arrive later in the novel. A single parent, Alice is the head of a non-traditional, yet highly functional family. The Greer family only includes two people: Alice and her daughter, Taylor. Although a single parent who struggles financially, Alice has raised Taylor as a confident young woman who will not be held back by things like the lack of a father or low economic status in their hometown: Pittman, Kentucky. Alice tells Taylor, "trading Foster for you was the best deal this side of the Jackson Purchase". As Taylor matures and sees unmarried, pregnant young women all around her, she finds the courage to ask for a job at the Pittman County Hospital lab. In this relationship, love, support, and mutual admiration define this two-person, non-traditional family. As Taylor recalls: "There were two things about Mama. One is she always expected the best out of me. And the other is that no matter what I did, whatever I came home with, she acted like it was the moon I had just hung up in the sky and plugged in all the stars". Because of this strong mother-daughter relationship, Taylor finally finds the courage to leave Pittman altogether in order to escape unwed motherhood and to become the "best" person she can be.…