Beach Music

Shyla is Jack’s wife. Shyla died by suicide six years prior to the main events in the novel. Although she is dead, Shyla is the deuteragonist, the second most important character in the story. The memory of Shyla, and questions about why she chose to die, influence the actions of other characters.

Shyla has an unnamed mental health disorder, characterized by periods of depression as well manic obsession. Shyla also experiences migraines and hallucinations. In her childhood and teenage years, Shyla was hospitalized a few times, including a prolonged stay at a mental hospital. Jack is drawn to, and identifies with, Shyla’s range of emotions: “I had always thought her sadness was part of her depth […] Part of her allure was also her buoyancy and unpredictability” (469). Jack is not the only character drawn to Shyla’s charisma. In college, she was a leader of the campus antiwar movement; many people were captivated by her beauty and her passion. She was a charismatic member of a close community of friends, a community that is stricken by her death. Shyla’s death spurs Jack and her parents to take actions that set the stage for the plot of the novel—it is because of her death that Ruth and George Fox sue Jack for custody of Leah, leading Jack to move to Rome and cut himself off from his family and friends.

Shyla’s story is emblematic of The Potency of Generational Trauma. Her parents are both survivors of the Holocaust. The stories of their trauma—and the parenting style informed by that trauma—impact Shyla profoundly. Shyla’s final words are a reference to her mother’s experiences during World War II, and Shyla gets a tattoo replicating her father’s Auschwitz prisoner tattoo in the hours before her death. A desire to understand the depths of Shyla’s generational trauma, and a need to deal with their guilt, leads Jack, Ruth, and George to seek reconciliation with each other.

Jordan is Jack McCall’s close friend and a central character in the subplot that takes place during their college years at the University of South Carolina. Jordan is a tragic character who embodies the heroic traits of courage, conviction, and integrity, but who is brought down by his choices. Jordan’s desire to advocate for what he believes in and his need to stand up to his father led him to accidentally kill two people when he blew up a plane in an act of defiance.

Jordan is handsome and athletic. He moved to Waterford in high school, after a long string of moves necessitated by his father’s military career. Jordan introduced his new friends to surfing and skateboarding, symbolizing his perspective as an outsider who does not hold the traditions of Southern culture in the same regard.

The Line Between Loyalty and Duty is a significant component of Jordan’s character arc. Jordan is often torn between duty to his father, and to his father’s military ethic, and loyalty to his friends and his own moral compass. This tension causes a rift between Jordan and his father, one that is resolved only once Jordan agrees to turn himself in and serve prison time for his crime.

Jordan serves as a foil to Jack; both men live in Rome at the beginning of the novel and are isolated from their pasts and connections in their hometown. Their two narrative arcs follow different but parallel paths as each man seeks to reconcile himself to his past and find a way to move forward.

Lucy is Jack’s mother. In Part 1, Lucy is diagnosed with leukemia. Her illness is the inciting incident for the main plot of the novel, motivating Jack to return home to South Carolina after years away. Lucy’s illness inspires her character’s transformation; as Lucy faces her own mortality, she longs to reconnect with Jack and to get to know her granddaughter Leah. Lucy grows more honest and open as the novel progresses, finally sharing details about her past that she has never revealed before.

Lucy’s beauty is notorious. When Lucy met Jack’s father, she was very young, illiterate, lacking connections, and poor, but used her good looks and her charm to make up for these disadvantages. Lucy’s childhood traumas and her shame in being uneducated inform her parenting style. By her own admission, and according to her sons, she was tempestuous and occasionally cruel during their childhoods. Lucy’s story underscores The Potency of Generational Trauma; she works hard to not repeat the harm that was done to her as a young girl who did not grow up with any example of responsible parenting.

Ruth and George Fox are Shyla’s parents. Both are Polish Jews and are survivors of the Holocaust, during which they lived through numerous traumatic events. In the wake of Shyla’s death, Ruth and George grapple with extreme guilt and grief. These powerful emotions lead them to sue Jack for custody of Leah, a slight for which he does not forgive them for many years.

There is an especially strong animosity between Jack and George. Although George does not play a conventional antagonist role, Jack views him as an antagonist in his life. George admits to hating Jack because he looks like the stereotypical blond and blue eyed man the Nazis idealized. In turn, Jack admits to hating George because of the unyielding, unaffectionate way George parented Shyla. Still, the reader and Jack develop strong empathy for George after he reveals his horrific experiences during World War II. Both men undergo a transformation as they eventually seek each other’s forgiveness and understanding. Their desire for mutual rapprochement is motivated by their love for Leah and the desire for her to have a stable, bright future surrounded by family.

Jack McCall is the oldest of five sons. His brothers Dallas, Dupree, Tee, and John Hardin are minor characters as individuals, but are important in establishing the family dynamic of the McCall household. They each play a role in supporting Jack on his journey of forgiveness and reconnection with his home.

Dallas is the next oldest, after Jack. He is a lawyer, practicing in a law firm with their father. Dallas has, in Jack’s words, “chosen the most conventional path […] his is the voice of reason in [their] passionate, breakneck family, where screaming is considered a higher form of discourse” (116). Dallas’ level-headedness is a contrast to the volatility of the other McCalls, including Jack.

Of Jack’s four brothers, John Hardin plays the most active role in the narrative. John Hardin has schizophrenia and splits his time between living in a treehouse and receiving in-patient treatment at a mental hospital. Jack describes John Hardin as “tall, thin, and sunburned in an unhealthy way. There was something about John Hardin’s eyes that carried the terror of suddenly freed birds in them” (119). Because of his mental illness, John Hardin acts out on his impulses and strong emotions. His actions are often symbolic of the grief, fear, and confusion that all the brothers feel in the face of their mother’s illness. John Hardin’s erratic behavior also brings the brothers together; on the bridge in Waterford and when he takes Lucy away from the hospital, John Hardin creates dangerous situations, and the brothers must collaborate to make sure that everyone makes it out safely.