The Sequel

Jake Bonner is a secondary character. Because Anna kills him shortly prior to the novel’s start, Jake’s character never appears in scene in The Sequel. Before moving to New York and finding literary success, Jake teaches writing at Ripley College in Vermont. He dislikes this job because it doesn’t give him the opportunity to hone his literary craft and compels him to teach amateur writers with seemingly little true talent. He does publish several novels at the start of his career, but he doesn’t find authorial success until he steals his former student Evan’s story and publishes it as his novel Crib. Crib is “one of those rare novels […] to appear at the city’s most prestigious literary series” (5) and affords Jake the success he craved throughout his time as an aspiring writer. However, Jake doesn’t get to relish the benefits of his success because Anna kills him shortly after his book’s publication.

In the narrative present, Jake is a specter in Anna’s story. Because she’s known as Jake’s widow, she is compelled to talk and think about him constantly. In interviews, she openly laments losing Jake so early into their marriage and plays the part of the grieving, mournful widow. In reality, Anna is tired of thinking about Jake because she’s still bitter with him for having stolen and exploited her childhood trauma in writing. She is therefore trying to separate herself from Jake’s memory as much as she is trying to separate herself from Evan’s memory throughout The Sequel.

Evan Parker is a primary character. Like Jake, because Anna killed him before the narrative present, Evan doesn’t appear in scene during The Sequel. However, his presence feels tactile to Anna because she is forced to read the pages of his manuscript each time she receives an excerpt in the mail. These pages resurrect Evan on the pages of The Sequel and in Anna’s life and consciousness in the present.

According to Anna’s point of view, Evan was a selfish, bullying, egotistical individual who would do anything to make her life miserable. Although she and Evan grew up in the same house with the same parents, Anna doesn’t “possess a single memory of her brother as a compatriot” and “certainly no memory of sibling love” (66). Evan was “a rambunctious boy from toddlerhood” and never left home (66). He was well-liked at school, particularly with his female contemporaries. Anna believes that he got many young women pregnant and knows that he didn’t do well in his academics. Even so, Evan was their parents’ favorite child, and they treated him better than they treated Anna. For these reasons, Anna continues to resent him throughout the narrative present. She ultimately kills him when she discovers that he is writing about her life from his point of view in a yet unpublished manuscript. She’s unnerved when she receives excerpts of the story in the present, both because she thought she destroyed all evidence of it and because she is desperate to destroy this iteration of her life in Vermont with Evan. Evan’s character therefore acts as an antagonist throughout The Sequel, as his memory upsets Anna and drives her character to psychological unrest and to commit another series of violent crimes.

Rose Parker is a minor character. She is also deceased in the narrative present and therefore doesn’t appear in a scene. Anna has Rose when she’s 15 after Evan’s best friend Patrick Bessette rapes her when he’s at her house one night. Anna tries to kill Patrick, herself, and Rose before her birth, but fails. Over the years following, Rose grows up to be an intelligent, driven, and self-possessed individual. Because Anna didn’t want to have Rose or to be a mother, she grows to resent her daughter. She decides to kill her and assume her identity just before Rose leaves home for college in order to escape her traumatic life in West Rutland.

Rose lives on in a new iteration when Anna steals her identity. As Rose, she travels to Georgia for college and lives a relatively banal life until Evan resurfaces again. She doesn’t live as Rose for very long before discarding this identity and fleeing to the West Coast.

Matilda Salter is a secondary character. She is Anna’s literary agent and works with Macmillan Publishing. Matilda worked with Jake before his death and therefore takes on Anna when she decides to start writing. Matilda is one of the best agents in the publishing industry. Working with her is therefore coveted. Although others think Anna and Matilda’s relationship is unfair given Anna’s connection to Jake, Matilda assures Anna that she’s “a gifted writer” and that just because she “arrived here by means of an atypical path,” it doesn’t mean her work doesn’t have merit (16). Matilda is encouraging of Anna throughout the novel and bolsters Anna’s ego. Having Matilda as a trusted ally reinforces Anna’s sense of worth and purpose and ultimately allows her to behave in illicit ways and to get ahead without trying.

Arthur Pickens is a secondary character. Anna originally meets him when she’s living as Rose Parker in Athens, Georgia. Pickens is an attorney and Anna hires him to help sell her supposed uncle Evan’s house in Vermont. She doesn’t like Pickens and ultimately ends up threatening his career when he stalls the realty process. Because he lives and works in a quiet southern town, Anna doesn’t see Pickens as shrewd or cunning. She therefore doesn’t anticipate that he’ll connect her life as Anna to Evan and her life as Dianna Parker, and thus figure out who she is and the crimes she committed.

Pickens is another antagonist. He is behind the manuscript excerpt and note sent to Macmillan. His actions therefore pressurize Anna’s character and threaten her security. He also knocks her out and drugs her when he finds her in his home and tries to blackmail her into giving him the royalties from Jake’s book. Anna ultimately triumphs over him when she kills him in the Georgia woods. His character is a device used to challenge Anna’s character, even though he does not succeed at bringing her any sort of justice.

Betty Bessette is a minor character. She is one of the women who buys Anna’s old house in West Rutland, Vermont. She lives in the house with her partner Sylvia. Anna doesn’t reconnect with the women until after learning of their involvement with Evan’s manuscript and the threatening letters. When Anna shows up at Betty’s house, Betty reveals that she is Patrick Bessette’s sister, the young man who raped Anna when she was a teenager. Betty’s actions are inspired by her desire for justice and revenge. She wants to destroy Anna and to make her pay for killing her brother and ruining her family. Like Pickens, Betty’s character is used to challenge Anna’s, but she doesn’t ultimately succeed at bringing Anna to justice.