Liza Kemp
The protagonist and titular character, Liza is a teenage girl taking care of her aging but still domineering mother who proceeds to make a series of increasingly bad life choices. Instead of marrying Tom as everyone expects, she instead indulges in an affair with a married man with a propensity for domestic violence. This aspect of his personality only seems to make him more appealing, however, and her lust leads her down an inevitably tragic path.
Mrs. Kemp
Liza’s aging and cantankerous mother who never misses an opportunity to play the guilt card on her daughter. More tightfisted with money than with alcohol, she is a mean drunk which is, of course, only slightly worse than any other kind. Unpleasant to the core, most will agree she deserves her fate.
Sally and Harry Atkins
Sally is Liza’s best friend who is also given to bad choices. She gets pregnant at an early age with Harry who can possibly best Mrs. Kemp when it comes to holding liquor worst: he’s not merely a mean drunk, but a wife-beating one to boot. Sally is clearly on her way to being a baby-making machine.
Jim Blakeston
Married, but hardly in the mood to let that stop him from sleeping with Liza or anyone else he wants. The nature of their relationship is succinctly implicated in the fact that his first prelude to sexual conquest of Liza commences with a vicious punch to her gut. That this romantic overture is the one which finally kicks Liza’s passion into overdrive says everything one needs to know about their future.
Mrs. Blakeston
A pregnant Liza’s last contact with what passes for human contact in the lower depths of Lambeth is an unexpected showdown with a person she never even really considered a rival. Determined to fight for the obviously battle-worthy Jim, her route to retainment of what passes for husband material among the working-class poor of London at close to the midnight strike of the Victorian Era passes straight through the short unhappy booze-filled life of Liza of Lambeth.
