Where It Remains Of Me Character Analysis

The Root of All Crime

Crime novels are known for their elaborate story lines with plot twists shocking enough to make the reader reread whole chapters. The novels being compared are both crime novels. The first novel is Where it Hurts, by Reed Farrel Coleman, and the novel is called What Remains of Me, by Alison Gaylin. Both novels were written in 2016 and were nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe award, for the crime and mystery genre . A review by Maureen Corrigan praised Coleman for his detailed setting, adding on “loads of flashy local color” (Corrigan). Gaylin, however, was recognized in a Washington Post review by Juliet Fletcher for her detailed plot and characters. With a shared genre, the question arisen is if, through these two works,

One way to develop a character, specifically the protagonist, is through their family situation. The first novel’s protagonist, Gus Murphy, is part of what could only be described as a dysfunctional family . After his son’s death, his family fell apart, so it is through accepting his son’s death that Murphy transforms as a character: “The sun in the sky was telling the truth again, its warmth on my skin matching the intensity of its color” (Coleman 348). Because Murphy used to be a cynical and miserable person, his appreciation of life and nature shows his transformation as a person. Similar to the protagonist of the second novel, Kelly Lund’s family is beyond struggling: her twin sister died. The anger that Kelly feels about her sister’s death is a big part of her character development as she becomes dangerous to herself and others. Kelly begins taking drugs and lashing out at people, most memorably, her mother. She blames her mother for her sister’s alleged suicide saying, “Catherine is dead because of you… You killed her” (Gaylin 150). Her lashing out reveals a big change in Lund’s character because she used to be “the quiet twin, the dull one” (Gaylin 12). In looking at the two novels, a commonality arises concerning family dynamics. Therefore, it becomes evident that character development, in crime novels, depends on dysfunctional or even broken family