The first character the readers are introduced to is Lee. It's implied and then later confirmed that she has had a separation from her husband Jack. This is most likely due to some fallout after the death of their daughter Jess, as she was in the 1993 chapter but does not appear again and the way Jack and Lee talk about her and what happened with the oil spill (pages 29-31) leads one to believe that Jess is no longer living. Due to what happened at Rosemont and what happened to her daughter, Lee is obsessed with preventing the development of the field that was contaminated. Her lingering grief over what happened and need for some sort of justice seems to be the driving force of her actions.
The next character Steinke introduces is Hal. Hal is a desperate man who wants to escape the monotony and mediocrity of his current life. The way he describes his job, how he feels about his clients, and the fact that he had an affair and that some part of him longs to continue that affair shows how dissatisfied with his life he is. At the same time, he obviously loves and wants to do right by his wife and son Cully, whom he is incredibly proud of. His prayers for help show just how desperate he is. He doesn't just want to, he needs to appeal to a higher power for help. In this case, the higher power is both God and this Avery person who has some part in the development of the contaminated field and who is interested in having Hal sell those homes (page 14).
Finally, there is Willa. Willa, at first glance, seems to be a standard teenage girl, but is she really? Having hallucinations does not seem like something most teenage girls do. Something traumatic may have happened at some point in the past that she is only beginning to remember now.
The name 'Friendswood' carries the connotation of peace and community. It's a tight knit place, shown by the fact that all of the characters, main and minor, know each other. The description of the restaurant Hal eats at, where the walls are covered in old pictures of the town's high school football teams since 1940 and the comment about "honorable tradition" (page15) shows that the past still has a strong hold over the community. The description of the storm-battered town in the beginning of the book foreshadows the issues that will eventually tear apart the town (page 3).
Cited Works:
Steinke, R. (2014). Friendswood. New York, New York: Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin
House LLC
