Run for the Hills

Madeline “Mad” Hill serves as the primary protagonist, and her journey from a state of resignation to one of active engagement with her past forms the core emotional arc of the novel. A round and dynamic character, Mad is initially defined by the life her father, Chuck, left for her. As a farmer, she has unconsciously continued his legacy, a fact that both grounds and traps her. Her most salient traits are her stoicism, a fierce devotion to her mother and their farm, and a deep-seated suspicion of the outside world.

Mad’s insular existence is shattered by the arrival of her half-brother, Rube, whose quest forces her to confront the painful history she has deliberately suppressed. The nickname “Mad,” an invention of her father’s, reflects both her simmering, unexpressed anger at his abandonment and the protective shell she has built around herself. Her reluctant cross-country trip in a series of retro-styled cars symbolizes her uncomfortable journey into a past she never chose in order to forge a new future.

Mad’s transformation is marked by her growing capacity for connection, particularly with the siblings she never knew she had. She evolves from a passive observer to an active leader within the group, often providing the steady, pragmatic voice needed to navigate their chaotic search. While she begins her journey claiming to be content in her isolation, her quiet quotation from Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! at the novel’s start—,“I’ve been very lonely, Carl” (5)—reveals the truth of her inner life. Mad bonds with her new family by the end of their trip but ultimately decides to return to the farm at the novel’s end. Her decision is not a retreat to her old self but a conscious choice to embrace her home with a new, fuller understanding of who she is and the complex family to which she now belongs.

As the catalyst for the narrative and the story’s deuteragonist, Reuben “Rube” Hill propels the plot forward with his desperate need for answers. He is a round, dynamic character whose quest to find his father is precipitated by the death of his mother, an event that leaves him feeling profoundly alone and disconnected from his past. His profession as a mystery writer directly mirrors his father’s first abandoned career, connecting him to the theme of Narrative as a Tool for Reclaiming a Fractured Past; he seeks to impose order and find resolution in the chaos of his family history, just as he does in his novels.

Rube’s defining characteristics include his pronounced emotional vulnerability (which contrasts sharply with Mad’s stoicism), his intellectual persistence, and a comical anxiety in the face of practical challenges. His journey is one of profound emotional development. Initially fueled by a dark fantasy of patricidal revenge, Rube develops a different motivation as he discovers his siblings. The connection he forges with them transforms his quest from a personal vendetta into a collective effort to build a family. His initial attempt to understand his father through a “game show version” of trading facts proves insufficient (21), pushing him toward a more nuanced form of understanding. Rube’s ultimate decision to stay with his ailing father at the ranch marks the completion of his arc. He moves beyond the desire for a simple, clean resolution and instead embraces the difficult, ongoing work of reconciliation and care. He chooses to write a new, more complicated ending for his family’s story.

Pepper “Pep” Hill is a significant secondary character whose arc explores the conflict between a life defined by a parent’s influence and the creation of an independent identity. A round and dynamic character, she is fiercely independent, emotionally guarded, and possesses an intense, almost single-minded focus; these traits have fueled her career as an elite college basketball player. Her father, Chip, introduced her to basketball and coached her as a child, but her subsequent success is the result of her own relentless drive, making her a physical embodiment of the tension between inherited legacy and self-creation. For years, she channels her feelings about her father’s abandonment into her sport. Her pivotal moment comes after the devastating loss of her final college basketball game. This event, coupled with the sudden appearance of her siblings, acts as a catalyst for her personal transformation, freeing her from the future she had so carefully constructed. In an act of pure impulse, she abandons her team and joins the quest, choosing the uncertainty of her family’s past over the structured world of athletics. This decision marks her transition from dealing with his father’s legacy in isolation to confronting it as part of a larger, shared history with her newfound siblings.

Theron “Tom” Goudy is another secondary character. At 11 years old, he is initially presented as the youngest of the siblings, and the last “Hill” child to join the cross-country road trip. His character serves as a vital thematic focal point. Despite his age, Tom is a round character whose precocious nature and artistic sensibility offer a unique perspective on the family’s fractured history. He most directly embodies the theme of narrative as a tool for reclaiming a fractured past. As an aspiring low-budget independent filmmaker, he literally attempts to create a cohesive story from the abandoned artifacts of his father’s life, specifically the old home movies Charles left behind when he fled Utah. These films, which he initially believes to be his father’s early artistic works, become Tom’s key to understanding that he is part of a much larger, more complicated family.

Trista Goudy’s revelation that Charles Hill is not Tom’s biological father further complicates his identity while reinforcing the novel’s argument that family is built on shared experience and love—not just genetics. His ongoing film project, in which he and his father play versions of each other, is a powerful symbol of his use of art to process, understand, and connect with the man who raised and then left him.

The novel features three mother figures, Rachel Daggett, Cathy Permalee, and Trista Goudy. Individually and collectively, the mothers function as foils to the transient Charles Hill. Each woman represents a distinct form of resilience and stability in the face of Charles’s abandonment, and they collectively anchor the narrative by providing crucial context for the siblings’ lives, Charles’s intimate relationships, and the shared family history.

Mad’s mother, Rachel Daggett, is an earth-mother figure, deeply rooted in the Tennessee farm, who protects her daughter by withholding the full truth of Charles’s serial abandonments. Pep’s mother, Cathy Permalee, is a pragmatic and powerful matriarch who, after being left by “Chip,” builds a business empire and fiercely guards Pep’s athletic ambitions from outside disruption. Tom’s mother Trista Goudy is the most complex of the three; a successful news anchor, she reveals that her separation from “Carl” was mutual and, more significantly, that Tom is not Charles’s biological son. These revelations fundamentally reframe the other characters’ understanding of their father’s patterns. Together, these women represent the lives Charles left in his wake and demonstrate the strength required to rebuild and thrive without him.