Murder Road

April is the protagonist and first-person narrator of Murder Road. She is self-sufficient and independent, having cared for both herself and her mother since the age of 12 and been on her own from the age of 18. April describes herself as “high school yearbook kind of pretty, not the kind of beautiful that made men crazy” (5). However, April only sees her looks as a means to an end—she has spent most of her life wanting to be anonymous and forgettable and sees her ordinary prettiness as the perfect way to achieve that. When she was 15, she “learned to wear the same hairstyles and the same makeup that all the other girls wore,” with one significant difference: “I knew how to pack everything I owned in a single bag within forty-five minutes” (18). The skills of blending in and being able to leave everything behind are the two most important skills of her previous life.

Ironically, it is this ability to pick up at a moment’s notice and leave her life behind that April struggles to overcome throughout the novel, and this struggle is the main thrust of her character arc. April has been moving all her life, purposely not attaching herself to anything or anyone.