Royston, MA is a fictional city, but it's located near Haverhill, which is very much real. The location is about 35 miles north of Boston, near the New Hampshire border and 17 miles east of the Atlantic coast.
The two friends; Cassie Burnes and Julia (Ju-Ju) Robinson (maybe Robertson?)
Cassie's father was killed by a drunk driver when Cassie was very young. Clarke Burnes was working a second job in Boston and was driving home in bad weather and his car was struck.
Beverly Burnes works as a nurse practitioner. She treats people that are dying; home hospice worker. No extended family or network and a somewhat mysterious past. You can't even be sure that Clarke was real, let alone all of the details of her life which she chooses to share.
Cassie says things to Bev that Bev promises never to bring up again, but she does. Is this some kind of evil intent, or is it just that Bev truly doesn't understand how important this confidence is to Cassie. THIS RIFT MATTERS MORE AS CASSIE GETS OLDER AND BEV'S ROMANTIC LIFE CHANGES.
Ju's father is a dentist. He works from an office behind their large Victorian home. Ju's mother, Carole, is a local reporter/ journalist for the newspaper.
Rudy- Alcoholic caretaker; alone except for his German Sheppard, Bessie
Peter- First Julia's boyfriend, but Cassie picks him up. This happened in middle school. Julia was always attracted to him and they become close when Cassie disappears. In high school they have a short sexual relationship, but decide that they are better as friends.
Delia Mosel- 'The Evil Morsel'; When Cassie and Julia drift apart this girl becomes friends with Cassie. She brings out the worse in Cassie.
Dr. Anders Shute is a doctor who becomes involved with Bev. She has been alone since she lost Clarke, and Cassie is happy that she has found someone, but was always suspicious about Shute's motives.
Bev is Christian and Shute makes her even more rigid in her beliefs, and this has a really big adverse effect on Cassie.
This is the doctor that treated Cassie when she was bitten by a dog when Julia and Cassie worked for a vet as a summer job when they first went to high school.
Notes from the author's reflections on the book at Amazon-
"FIRST BEST FRIEND- A type of union that prefigures romantic love. Falls away you see more of what seperates you than what brings you togehter.
Every adventure, for good or for worse, becomes better with your friend.
Major Theme-
Human intimacy and how much we know each other.
How much we 'make up'to cover what we don't know
The Dilemma of The Book-
In a mature or 'real' relationship, the person you love reflects back an accurate reflection of who you are or who you can be. It becomes difficult if the sense of yourself that comes back is not what you would wish."
Notes about author's background-
Claire Messud; Greenwich, CT (1966), novelist and creative writing professor. Grew up in the United States, Australia, and Canada, returning to the US as a teenager; mother Canadian and father is from French Algeria. Studied at Yale and Cambridge. Messud is married to book critic (The New Yorker/ The Guardian), James Wood
Nice Insight Into Being Female
“Sometimes I felt that growing up and being a girl was about learning to be afraid. Not paranoid, exactly, but always alert and aware, like checking out the exits in the movie theatre or the fire escape in a hotel. You came to know, in a way you hadn't as a kid, that the body you inhabited was vulnerable, imperfectly fortified.”
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