Who are the Characters and How is Friendswood Described?

In the first thirty pages of the novel, it is apparent that the characters of Lee, Hal, and Willa are becoming the sole focus.  Author Steinke crafts her writing in a way that allows the reader to absorb snippets of information regarding the characters.  Just in the first few pages, Steinke offers glimpses of Lee’s past, such as her split from her husband Jack, to help the reader better understand her behaviors in the present.  On page thirty, there is evidence to suggest some tragedy regarding Lee’s daughter Jess when she wrote, “Jess felt close and far away at the same time, as if she were hiding somewhere, tiny, in the pulsing phone waves between them” (Steinke 30).  These ominous suggestions coupled with the melancholic vibes created by Lee’s solitude provide valuable insight regarding Lee’s resilience.  Lee becomes a woman toughened by the harsh realities of poverty, strained familial ties, and separation.  Lee harnesses her life experiences into a sole purpose: Trying to uncover the fraud of the oil refinery companies that destroyed part of her past.  Her past fuels her passion for justice.

  Hal immediately strikes the reader as a man who has lost himself in a world of monotony and taxing work.  Having been worn down, involved in an affair, and addicted to alcohol, he “said a tired prayer.  Help” (Steinke 18).  The desperation and need for a revival in his life is clear.

  In trying to uncover Willa’s character, the reader gets the sense that she appears to have many normal teenage experiences.  She gets butterflies around boys, hangs with her best friend Dani, and sometimes goes to parties in the woods; however, the author does leave the reader to wonder whether some traumatic experience is locked away in her past somewhere.  Her frequent hallucinations could have root in some disturbing experience that Willa’s mind is trying to suppress.  

     In describing Friendswood, Steinke creates an atmosphere of destruction that continues to reflect a town battered and torn by multiple influences.  Right from the first page, the town is written to have “fallen branches and toppled road signs” from a ravaging storm (Steinke 1).  Friendswood appears to be a battleground that has been succumbing to the forces of both man and nature. When the oil company attempted to bury the oil, the once lively Texas town fell into toxic turmoil.  The lands smelled “acidic and bitter, benzane fumes or worse” (Steinke 11).  The land became tainted with pipe and scraps of rubber.  To further emphasize the dilapidated and crumbling nature of the town, Steinke wrote, “The sludge appeared, thick and oozing and with a streak of fluorescent green” (Steinke 28).  The sludge is personified into being an evil force that continues to creep in on the town and suffocate its beauty, vivacity, and hope.  With such descriptions, Friendswood becomes an incredibly desolate and hopeless place that is inundated with despair, which is reflected by the lost feelings experienced by the characters.  The video below captures much of the grief and desperation that characterizes Friendswood in their fight against human neglect of the environment.  

Work Cited:
Steinke, R. (2014). Friendswood. New York, New York: Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin   Group (USA.