My Friends

Louisa is one of the protagonists of the novel. At the outset, she is 17 and on the run from her foster home since her best friend Fish died. Louisa is characterized as creative, rebellious, and suspicious of all adults. For most of her life, Louisa has carried around a postcard with an image of a famous painting called The One of the Sea. Because Louisa has been let down by every adult system meant to protect her, the painting has been her one constant and the one beautiful thing she can cling to in a chaotic world, a haven of beauty and safety that she has never known. Over the course of the novel, Louisa seeks the safety and support she observes in the painting, and her meeting with Kimkim instigates both the plot and her eventual accomplishment of that goal. As she runs from the police, she meets the artist who created her beloved painting, a moment that changes her life as Kimkim becomes a living symbol of possibility. The encounter affirms for Louisa that she is not invisible, and that beauty can still find her even when she feels lost. Kimkim saw her pain, her passion, and her potential and deemed them worthy of the most valuable thing he could give.