A Love Letter to Whiskey

B is the protagonist, narrator, and in-text author of A Love Letter to Whiskey. B describes her childhood as fairly conventional and happy. For years, she believed that her parents were high-school friends who dated for a short time and then separated amicably. However, after her mother revealed that B was conceived by rape, B’s love for her parents gave way to more complex feelings. B is especially sensitive about her name, as it is a reminder of how she was conceived: “Brecks” is the Irish word for “freckled,” which her mother chose because she counted B’s father’s freckles during her rape. B thinks of her name as “monstrous,” and it comes to encapsulate her doubts about her own capacity for and entitlement to love. That B “affiliate[s] love with fear” because of what her father did to her mother contributes to issues in her own romantic relationships (188), which she often sabotages. Learning to Accept Love is thus at the heart of B’s character arc.

B is initially uncertain about what she wants to do with her future and what to major in when she gets to college, but she knows that she wants to leave her hometown due to her complicated relationship with her parents.