Pretty Girls

Lydia, the middle Carroll daughter, crumbled after Julia’s disappearance, falling into vagrancy and a pattern of violence and arrests. Her troubled teenage years led to various drug addictions and poor decisions, but since having her daughter Dee, Lydia has built a thriving small business and successfully manages her sobriety. She still has many insecurities, namely about her weight and binge eating urges, but unlike Claire, she acknowledges her past and her mistakes, and takes strides to move beyond them.

At the beginning of the novel, the two sisters are estranged, and Lydia is quite critical of Claire. Their relationship is fraught because Claire dismissed Paul’s attempted rape of Lydia years ago. In her inner monologues, Lydia mocks Claire’s out-of-touch wealth and perfect body and negatively compares herself to Claire, since the latter has a seemingly perfect life. Despite their differences, the sisters are quick to jump to each other’s aid.

When Lydia is kidnapped and forced to take Percocet, her will to live drops because so much of her self-worth is invested in having survived difficulty (like addiction) and moved on. The thing that keeps her going is her fear that Dee will be hurt, which reveals that her petty distaste for richer, prettier acquaintances is not as driving a characteristic as her aim to be a better mother for her daughter than Helen was for her.

Paul, Claire’s husband, is an architect whose parents died when he was young. He is rich, arrogant, and demanding, but he fawns over Claire such that she ignores his faults. He has latent obsessive compulsions and clearly feels a need to have full control of his house, his wife, and his extracurricular activities. After his staged death during a robbery, clues of his nefarious activities arise, and his secret life as a murderer and rapist is revealed. Ever since the rape and murder of Julia Carroll, Paul has had an unnatural obsession with consuming the Carroll family. He attempts to pursue Lydia, but she rebuffs his advances, so he pivots toward Claire, whom he considers an “easier target.”

Paul fakes his death with help from the FBI by pretending to be an informant for the snuff film ring he adopted from his father. He goes underground, much to the FBI’s dismay, resurfacing only to terrorize Claire and Lydia as they track him down. Though Paul dies by Claire’s hands, his downfall is due to his own maniacal hubris and inherent misogyny: He still believes himself cunning enough to control Claire’s thoughts and actions, and consequently underestimates her anger and drive for revenge.

The eldest Carroll daughter, Julia was abducted at 19 and presumed dead. She was opinionated and bold about topics like feminism, journalism, and public policy. She was thin and beautiful, identifiable by her long blonde hair and the metal bangles on her wrists. Though she is deceased in the novel, her character is not static, because Sam’s letters reveal new aspects of her personality through old memories. Julia’s bones are eventually found at the bottom of a well on the Fuller property, and the Carroll family brings them back as a token of her spirit, finally at rest.

The patriarch of the Carroll family, Sam becomes a broken, soulless man after Julia disappears. Depressed and desperate to discover what happened to Julia, Sam emotionally abandons the others in his grief, and Helen eventually divorces him, although their love secretly persists up until Sam’s death. Several of the chapters are written from his perspective, framed as letters to Julia that signal his inability to let go and move forward. In his final letter he fantasizes about Julia’s wedding, which never happened, revealing his desperate desire for an alternative future in which Julia is alive, at the expense of his remaining living family.

Helen is the matriarch of the Carroll family, although she has since remarried. She is a retired librarian, and her calm, smart attitude can prove abrasive with the police, especially following Julia’s disappearance. Helen suffered greatly after Julia’s death; she slipped into alcoholism and retreated into her feelings at the cost of emotionally abandoning her two younger daughters. However, the fact that she jumps to Claire’s aid in a time of need—“fixing” simple issues by buying a burner phone and food, and setting up call forwarding to trick Paul—shows that she is eager to revisit her role as mother, to rectify past parental inadequacies.

Dee is Lydia’s teenage daughter from a previous relationship, the youngest of the Carroll clan. She is the spitting image of her aunt Julia and wants to go to veterinary school like her grandfather Sam. She is studious and well liked, and lives a life very separate from her extended family since Lydia avoids contact with them.

After Paul kidnaps Lydia, part of his emotional torture is to taunt her about how Dee would be the perfect next victim because of her similarity to Julia. Dee’s health and safety is Lydia’s guiding motivation for stopping Paul’s rampage. She exists in the novel partially to embody hope for a new generation not wholly broken by grief.

Rick is a mechanic and Lydia’s longtime boyfriend. He is a blue-collar worker who met Lydia in rehab and has since been a dedicated father figure to Dee. He is gentle and kind, and provides a safe refuge for Lydia and Dee both emotionally and physically.

Fred is the lone FBI agent joining the investigation alongside local law enforcement. He dresses identical to Mayhew, except his trench coat is fancier and his black eyes exude an aggressive focus that makes Claire uneasy. He is prone to inappropriate flirting and sports a mysterious black eye injury that gives him an air of untrustworthiness.

The current head of Dunwoody Police, Mayhew certainly looks the part with his untrimmed mustache, classic trench coat, and dangling cigar. He is patronizing and slow to action, which makes him a clog in the communication line between the police and the public.

Huckabee is the sheriff who led Julia’s investigation. Nicknamed Huckleberry by Helen thanks to his bumbling incompetence, he further obstructs Claire’s investigation into Paul’s secret life due to his complicity in various crimes, including Julia’s rape and murder. He is the stereotypical small-town sheriff with his Stetson hat, yellow-trimmed trousers, and stiff mustache.

Johnny is a locally famous lawyer turned congressman. He is Paul’s uncle and has been his career benefactor for many years. He also has nebulous ties with law enforcement and the FBI, so he is rumored to pull various administrational strings when desired, even if those strings are deadly. The FBI discovers that he is a key player in the snuff ring, and his lofty reputation crumbles as he scrambles to avoid jail time for collusion.

Adam is Paul’s childhood friend and current partner at their architecture firm. He is in touch with his feelings, perhaps a little too much, and he has spontaneously hooked up with Claire several times over the years.