The Celebrants

Jordan’s husband, Jordy, is described as a loyal former athlete. As a 6’4” swimmer, Jordy returns to swimming while Jordan is sick, and the culminating event of reclaiming his identity as an athlete is his participation in the Escape from Alcatraz race during his funeral weekend. Jordan is also described as practical and is characterized by Jordan’s discussion of his role as a business partner as well as a life partner: “Jordy his business partner was solution-oriented. […] But Jordy his life partner was sometimes short on listening and providing comfort because he was always too focused on the business” (90). While the narrative primarily focuses on the Jordans during moments of tension in the interludes as they attempt to navigate Jordan’s terminal illness, they are characterized as having a loving relationship. Much of Jordy’s identity is derived from his relationship with Jordan, emphasizing the theme of Identity Originating in Self Versus Others. His trajectory as a character is based on preempting the loss of identity he expects to experience after Jordan’s death.

Naomi has a caustic wit and is relentlessly honest with her friends. She has a successful career in the music industry and a keen eye for musical artistry, having fostered a preference for “deep tracks” even before the development of her career. She is reluctant to divulge personal details and is described as “incapable of letting anyone see her real emotions” (162), in part as a result of her upbringing. Her wealthy parents have an import/export business and are constantly traveling until their death in a plane crash.

Naomi is a complex character who develops throughout the novel, and her funeral is the catalyzing event for her increasing self-awareness. During her eulogy, she describes internalizing her parents’ disappointment in her, saying that “she, their very American daughter, needed more than her Japanese parents, who were raised very differently, had been able to give” (136). While she acknowledges that her parents are a product of their own upbringing and culture, she never experiences the hoped-for event of hearing them express pride in her. Her funeral enables Naomi to express self-love by giving her own eulogy. After her funeral, she decides to quit drinking and is engaged at the end of the novel to Gary, who she says is good for her.

Craig was given up by his parents, so he has a difficult time forming meaningful relationships. Having lost Alec in college, the other straight man in the group and his best friend, he is missing his partner within the group dynamic. He has a series of short and superficial relationships with women much younger than him. He is Mia’s biological father, and he has a strained relationship with Marielle for much of the novel as they navigate his suspicions about Mia’s paternity.

Having authenticated two paintings that prove to be forgeries, Craig’s funeral is prompted by his decision to plead guilty to art fraud, a crime for which he eventually serves seven months before being granted early release. Following the pattern of character growth being catalyzed by the funeral events, Craig eventually becomes open to real relationships, beginning to form a connection with Mia when he meets her and eventually asking Marielle if he can move to Oregon to spend more time with her.

Marielle is described as caring and community minded. She is a vegetarian, a strong feminist, and the only member of the group who has raised a child. Marielle is characterized initially by her actions in caring for the eyeless kittens that she brought to the funeral weekend with which Part 1 opens. She is protective, attempting to save them from a cell phone that has been thrown across the room: “[I]n a sincere yet comical overreaction, [she] jumped in front of the kittens to act as a human shield” (5). An important part of her identity is that she has a daughter, Mia, and “complicated feelings for Mia’s father” (11). While she is “determined in the wake of losing [Alec] to live a life in pursuit of her own pleasure and satisfaction” (68), she ends up in a relationship without much love with Max, whom she meets while moving to Washington, DC, soon after graduation. It transpires that Mia is actually Craig’s daughter, conceived when they had sex the night of the funeral, though she hasn’t admitted this fact to herself until she sees Craig and Mia interact. Mia’s parentage is also complicated by the fact that the narrator describes their sex as nonconsensual: “If Craig had cared about Marielle […] he would have known she couldn’t have given [her consent]. Not because she was drunk or asleep, although maybe she was a little of both, but rather because she was out of her mind with grief” (51). Craig and Marielle’s lack of discussion about this event, and about Mia until much later in the novel, suggests that both characters have repressed this event.

Marielle is represented as a complex character, and her primary arc through the novel is from feeling like her identity has been subsumed by caregiving to rediscovering her selfhood. This underscores the theme of Identity Originating in Self Versus Others. Before her funeral begins, she worries that she “would have to do everything herself. Like a wife does. Like a mother does. She was the one most lost and yet, like always, others were leaning on her for direction” (83). After, she feels that she has been given permission to “indulge in finding her own identity again” (124). She later moves to Oregon to work in a nonprofit animal rescue.

Alec is the missing member of the group, who died of a drug overdose two weeks before he was due to graduate from Berkeley. While he is not present in the action of the novel, he remains a fixture in the friends’ consciousnesses and is characterized as a secondary character through their discussions of and thoughts about him. Alec “did drugs openly and often” (30); he is described as being oblivious to the time of day and normal routines to which others, like his roommate Jordy, adhere. Before his death, Alec had been in a relationship with Marielle, which is described as problematic because the group members express anger at Alec for how he behaves toward her at times. Alec is described as being impulsive, and the friends frequently imagine outlandish actions that he might take if he were still alive.

Since he is the youngest of six, Marielle suggests that Alec’s biggest fear is “not being worthy of attention” (30). In contrast to the other group members’ more cynical attitudes, Alec “was skeptical about the world, about people, but saw that as a personal failing of his, and not, as he should have, the failings of literally everyone else” (25). It is eventually revealed that Alec contracted AIDS before his death, and the question of whether his death was a result of suicide or an accidental drug overdose is never confirmed. This ambiguity relates to the novel’s idea that Funerals Are for the Living, since it reinforces the sense that people must not leave their positive feelings about others unsaid.