The Familiar

Luzia is the protagonist and major point-of-view character in The Familiar. She is 20 years old when the story opens. She is not beautiful but has dark, curly hair that her mother called “desert hair.” Her father was Portuguese and worked much of his life as a merchant, but in adulthood he showed symptoms of a mental health condition and died as a beggar when he gave away the coat and boots Luzia made for him. Luzia still feels guilty, fearing she helped cause his death. Luzia’s mother came from a long line of Jewish scholars and she taught Luzia Latin, Spanish, and Hebrew.

Luzia’s family were conversos, Jews who converted to Christianity, but they practiced Judaism in secret during Luzia’s childhood. Luzia is afraid, especially when she enters into the Torneo Secreto, that her Jewish heritage will be discovered and she will be burned at the stake by the Inquisition as her great-grandfather was. She takes mass at the Christian church not because she is pious, but because she wants to keep herself safe. She takes a job as a kitchen scullion because she needs to support herself after her parents die—particularly when her aunt Hualit refuses to take her in—but she wants more for her life.