Grace lives in a house, a house that bakes its residents like an oven, because it is really too hot and unsuited for life in a desert. Still, holding onto her status, Grace lives in a European-style dwelling, with stiff and uncomfortable furniture as an example of her wealth. Grace was born poor, but because of the oil-rich nature of her land, she has acquired status within her community. The piano she longed for as a young girl is not played, and rots, but Grace does not care, because her ability to buy it is testimony to the fact, in her eyes, that she has done something significant with her life.
In short, Grace has fully embraced all of the myths of capitalism within American culture. However, at the beginning of the book, she is dead, murdered, it is implied because of her wealth...
Furthermore, despite her ability to acquire goods, Grace has not achieved real happiness. She has lost her traditional, Native American values and connection to the land. Even on the night before she dies, she longs for a husband, and takes pride in the beauty of her daughter Lila, almost as if Lila were a possession.
Women who lack the financial power of Grace within the novel become business investments, or objects of trade, if they do not possess real, capital assets. Even Grace views her own daughter as an object of value in the marriage market, rather than a human being, and Grace is seen in terms of dollars and cents, not in terms of her value as a mother and wife, or member of the tribe.
