Lila Mae Watson is the novel’s protagonist. She is the first Black female elevator inspector in the unnamed city where the book is set. Shrewd and serious, Lila Mae is painfully aware of her white colleagues’ attitude toward her, contributing to a sense of double consciousness as she reconciles her true identity with the identity the world projects onto her. One of the ways she does this is by “putting on her face” in the mirror each morning, hardening the sad features of her face.

Lila Mae first became interested in elevator science thanks to her father Marvin, who was fascinated with the field. Despite his talents and training as an engineer, the only job Marvin could obtain in the industry was as an elevator operator. Thus, it was a huge point of pride that Lila Mae became the first Black female graduate of the Institute for Vertical Transport. There, she pored over James Fulton’s Theoretical Elevators book series and became an adherent of his Intuitionist philosophy. She is therefore mistrusted by her colleagues on three fronts: She is Black, she is a woman, and she is an Intuitionist.

As Lila Mae works to unravel the mystery of the Fanny Briggs incident, Whitehead casts her as the hero of a detective novel.