Unlikeable Characters

Guest blog by Mary Camarillo

A meme floated around Facebook recently, reminding us that we need to be okay with not being liked all the time. “You could be a whole ray of sunshine and people will still dislike you because they’re used to rain.”

I feel that way about fictional characters as well. One of my favorites, Olive Kitteridge in Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge and Olive Again, is prickly and opinionated and not anyone’s definition of a ray of sunshine and I’m okay with that. I don’t need to like her as long as I feel compelled to keep reading and see what happens next.

After all, likeability is such a subjective description. “Unlikeable” can describe anyone who doesn’t behave the way you do or like the same things you enjoy. Some of us long for sunny days. Some of us are happiest when it’s raining. Some people voted for George W. Bush because he seemed like the kind of guy they’d want to have a beer with. Some people don’t like beer. Some people don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have a dog. Some people prefer cats.

Because I enjoy reading about unlikeable characters, I’ve created a few. The women in my debit novel The Lockhart Women (She Writes Press, June 2021) are good examples of not always sympathetic human beings. The mother, Brenda Lockhart, is judgmental and egotistical, sure that she’s entitled to a bigger life, convinced she’s settled for less by marrying beneath her. Her oldest daughter Peggy is a self-described doormat and younger daughter Allison enjoys sex, drugs, and shoplifting, not necessarily in that order.

Brenda Lockhart’s husband announces he’s leaving her for an older (and in Brenda’s always judgmental opinion) much less attractive woman. He drops this bombshell on the night of the O.J. Simpson chase through Southern California. Brenda, blindsided, sits down on the couch and gets hooked on the Simpson trial. She’s convinced he’s innocent. Meanwhile her two teenaged daughters make their own bad decisions with lovers and crime.

Some readers can handle unlikable characters as long as they are either punished or eventually redeem themselves. While both outcomes can be gratifying, real life doesn’t always work out that way. Good things happen to bad people. Bad people get away with murder sometimes. For example, O. J. Simpson.

And, although people don’t always change enough to completely redeem themselves, most of us have a few redeeming qualities. Brenda Lockhart loves her daughters. Olive Kitteridge turns out to be a kind and generous neighbor, especially as portrayed in the movie version by the always wonderful Frances McDormand.

In the same spirit as Olive Kitteridge, Julie Zuckerman’s The Book of Jeremiah brings her protagonist Jeremiah to full life, in all of its complex, aggravating, and often wince provoking moments. The novel spans eight decades of the twentieth century and although we don’t always admire Jeremiah’s decisions and behavior, we still root for him.

Similarly, in Lord the One You Love Is Sick, author Kasey Thornton beautifully constructs a small-town community in North Carolina rocked by a young man’s fatal drug overdose. The deceased’s best friend, a police officer, has a nervous breakdown. The police officer’s wife reconsiders whether she wants to be married to him anymore. His younger brother won’t come out of his mother’s basement. Ms. Thornton is unafraid to show life in its gritty details. These may not be people we’d want to have dinner with, but they feel familiar and very much alive.

In Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs, Nora is a rage-filled, forty-something schoolteacher. In an interview about the novel, Publisher’s Weekly complained to Ms. Messud that Nora’s outlook was almost unbearably grim and that they wouldn’t want to be friends with her. Ms. Messud famously responded, “If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t “is this a potential friend for me?” but “is this character alive?”

I read to experience other people’s lives, people I don’t know and who I might assume at first glance aren’t at all like me. I love the eventual realization that they are actually someone with whom I have a great deal in common, and if not, someone I at least understand a little better after giving their story a chance. To me, that is the power and joy of fiction.

But if you read to find friends, no judgment here. Life’s too short to slog through pages you can’t stand. I’d still be happy to have a beer with you and discuss books, the weather, cats and even George W. Bush.

 

Mary Camarillo’s novel The Lockhart Women recently won First Place in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Awards for First Novel. Mary lives in Huntington Beach, California with her husband who plays ukulele and their terrorist cat, Riley. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in publications such as Sonora Review, 166 Palms, and The Ear. For more information go to her website https://www.MaryCamarillo.com and find her on Facebook at mary.camarillo.31, on Instagram @marycamel13 and Twitter @marycamelmary.