Mary takes in a screening of Niagara the day she learns she's carrying Ray's baby, and this is only one of many watery images that flow through the book's roiling currents: Bell's struggle with the lake's waves, the unstemmable surges of illicit passion, the rains that come to carry everything in its path.

After she grew too old to work as a prostitute, she became a madam.

[…] their breathings, cryings, and excretings would have been damaged […]

So in this case, the appearance is quite human like, but the familiarity is negative. This is the uncanny valley.