The Ghostwriter

Vincent Taylor is a secondary protagonist and narrator. He is initially presented as an antagonistic figure because of the emotional violence he inflicted on Olivia during her childhood. However, Vincent’s mean edge is intended to misdirect the reader, reinforcing the false narrative that Vincent was responsible for his siblings’ murders.

As a teenager, Vincent is characterized as an outsider, someone who lacks the potential of his younger sister, Poppy, and the charisma of his older brother, Danny. The end of the novel reveals, however, that he has always had a gift for writing and storytelling. Vincent and Danny frequently antagonized one another, which escalated after Vincent started dating Lydia Greene. Vincent was conscious of the fact that Lydia used to crush on Danny before dating him. His insecurity frequently made him suspicious of Lydia’s activities. This was exacerbated when Danny mocked Vincent over Lydia’s apparent infidelity. Nevertheless, Vincent maintained his love for Lydia to the end of his life. When Vincent discovered that Lydia had killed Danny, Vincent created an alibi that would misdirect the public’s ire toward him. He also supported Lydia through her trauma, accepting her decision to leave him to raise their daughter, Olivia, alone and offering her financial support.

In the present day, Vincent is best known as a prominent writer of horror novels. His penchant for genre writing sustains the narrative that he has a capacity for terrifying violence. Vincent experiences an addiction to alcohol and drugs, a coping mechanism he inherited from his mother, Patricia, who used substances to numb herself to the emptiness of her life. Vincent’s addiction impacted his relationship with Olivia, causing him to push her away. He frequently enlisted the help of his assistant, Melinda, to spend quality time with Olivia. He also sent Olivia to boarding school in Switzerland in order to avoid engaging with her. Nevertheless, there are details to suggest the redeemability of Vincent’s character. One of Olivia’s fondest early memories is of the treasure hunts Vincent used to organize for her. Jack Randall also advocates for Vincent, recalling how Vincent showed him sympathy when his own father, Mark, had failed to raise him.

When Vincent enlists Olivia’s help on his memoir, he is experiencing Lewy body dementia, an illness that affects his ability to write. This makes him both willingly and unwillingly unreliable. On several occasions, Vincent recounts something to Olivia, only for her to find evidence that suggests that history did not happen exactly as Vincent told it. After Olivia starts seeing their book project as one last treasure hunt, she starts engaging Vincent more directly, confronting him with hard pieces of evidence that prompt his memories and allow her to reach the truth.

Poppy Taylor is a secondary protagonist and narrator. She drives the personal stakes of Olivia’s involvement in Vincent’s book project because of the resonances between their characters. Like Olivia, Poppy is a feminist who isn’t afraid to call men out on their faults and speak truth to power. She is also daring, as evidenced by her willingness to hitch rides with strangers when traveling to Ventura. Though Poppy is a young teen when she dies, Olivia frequently wonders what it would have been like to grow up with her, seeing her as a surrogate for the mother who left Olivia as a child.

While Vincent’s narrative reinforces the notion that he may have been involved in his siblings’ deaths in some way, Poppy’s narrative helps to fill in narrative gaps and provide helpful clues that aid Olivia in her quest for the truth. Clark symbolizes this narrative function by giving Poppy an important tool—the Super 8 camera—which allows Olivia to see what really happened, contradicting Vincent’s anecdotes at various points.

Consequently, Poppy struggles with the emotional burden of the things she learns in the last year of her life, including Lydia’s abortion and Danny’s sexual abuse. When her best friend, Margot, makes her go to Mr. Stewart’s party, Poppy copes with her knowledge by getting drunk for the first time. This inadvertently tips Mr. Stewart off to what she knows, prompting him to confront her and eventually kill her on the night of the Ojai carnival.

Mr. Paul Stewart is the antagonist of the novel. He is revealed to be Poppy’s murderer at the Ojai carnival, motivated by her discovery that Mr. Stewart sexually abuses his male students, which include Poppy’s brother, Danny. Mr. Stewart is one of the high school’s PE teachers and is extremely popular among the schoolchildren. He fosters this reputation by frequently indulging the students’ youthfulness. He throws house parties to mark the end of the school year. When Danny and his best friend, Mark, come to his house, he allows them to steal beers from his fridge.

On the surface, Mr. Stewart presents himself as a supportive mentor and ally, especially for characters like Lydia. Lydia seeks his support in her endeavors as a track runner. Mr. Stewart deduces that Lydia is pregnant and volunteers to accompany her to get an abortion, even though that action puts his career at risk. Mark does not suspect that Mr. Stewart is dangerous, because he has a girlfriend. Nevertheless, Mr. Stewart leverages Lydia’s trust in him to get Vincent to include him in their alibi. This effectively throws off the investigators from looking into his actions on the night of the Taylor murders.