Eleanor is the 49-year-old protagonist of the novel. She was the animation director on the successful Fox show Looper Wash and worked on other artistic projects, including the autobiographical graphic novel The Flood Girls, a project that is on at the beginning of the novel. Though she is highly successful and respected in her professional life, her personal life is dysfunctional and unbalanced. She does not spend as much time with her husband and son as she would like, and she frequently makes impulsive decisions that create problems for herself and others. She is determined to work on becoming a better person, but Joe’s disappearance and reminders of her estranged sister, Ivy, cause her to relapse into old and unhealthy habits.

Eleanor’s trauma from losing her mother to lung cancer and being neglected by her father in her youth has made her deeply afraid of being abandoned and betrayed by those she loves. She believes that her father’s alcohol addiction has defined her upbringing and her present life, making her adept at detecting dishonesty in others and deeply distrustful of others. Her uncertainty and doubt cause her to depend on Joe’s certainty in everything, which she sees as a comfort when she is stressed and confused about things.