The Shards: A Novel

Robert’s characterization depends on the scene and who’s depicting him. He grasps that Bret is infatuated with him and possibly projecting desires onto him. Robert tells Bret, “When you talk to me you’re really talking to yourself, dude” (244), a statement that describes Bret’s entire relationship with the world around him, as Bret’s inner life bleeds into his perception of reality. At times, Robert appears as the victim of a precarious home life in Chicago, where his stepmother antagonized him and his stepsister falsely accused him of abuse. In Los Angeles, he’s the victim of “followers,” who write him unsettling letters. Abigail concedes Robert’s harassed present and problematic past. She ultimately advances his slippery characterization by telling Bret that he’s “very… sensitive” and “not the dangerous individual” (935) that Bret depicts.

While Bret presents Robert as the villainous serial killer, he also makes Robert out to be his one true love. Bret says, “The boy aroused something primal in me that I had never felt before[….] I had to own him” (71). Bret is intensely attracted to Robert and feels that Robert is part of his destiny. Susan, too, is drawn to Robert and prefers him to Thom. Ryan also desires Robert and admits that he’d have sex with him. In addition to villain and victim, Robert is an antihero and a foil. He isn’t Bret, but Bret’s opposite, as Robert forms a presumably sexual relationship with Susan. More so, as Susan, Bret, and Ryan attest, Robert functions as a sex symbol.

Bret labels himself Susan’s “closet male friend.” They’ve known each other since seventh grade, and while Bret doesn’t tell Susan everything, he tells her more than others, including that he “hooked up” with Matt. Susan and Bret have an unrequited love dynamic, with Bret admitting that he has complex desires for her, and Susan conceding that she wanted to marry him. As Bret mainly has sexual feelings for men, the feasibility of such a romance is questionable, yet the possibility demonstrates their layered bond.

Susan meets the criteria for the popular high school girl. Bret calls her “the de facto queen of our class” and describes her as “beautiful” and “sophisticated” (48-49). Like Bret, Susan is introspective and tired of playing her role in Buckley. She doesn’t want to be Homecoming Queen, she thinks Thom is “uncurious,” and her main romantic interest becomes Robert. As student body president, Susan learns details about Robert from Dr. Croft, and Susan wants to throw Robert a welcome party. Like Bret, Susan is drawn to Robert from the get-go. Unlike Bret, Susan doesn’t think Robert is a serial killer.

Debbie is Bret’s romantic partner, and their dynamic stresses the theme of Alienation and Suspicion within Relationships. While Bret regularly tries to become a “new Bret” and play the role of Debbie’s boyfriend, he ultimately fails. He’s not attracted to her, and he often lies to her, creating mistrust. Instead of telling her that he’s spending the weekend with Ryan, he tells her he’s sick. While Debbie and Bret have sex, Bret thinks of men to stay aroused. For Bret, his relationship with Debbie is primarily a social performance: His status as the boyfriend of this extremely rich and popular girl gains him entry into the school’s elite circle, allowing him to play the role of a straight, privileged hedonist while keeping his more complicated inner self hidden.

The name “Debbie” evokes the word “debutante”—a young woman from an affluent family who enters society. While all the characters have a level of affluence, Debbie seems particularly privileged. Her father knows famous people, and she has a horse. Yet Debbie isn’t helpless. After Spirit’s murder and the photographs of Bret and Terry, Debbie survives an attack and spends a few days with a musician before returning. While Bret depicts Debbie as a needy, annoying girlfriend, Debbie has the traits to get by on her own.

Thom is Susan’s romantic partner, and she presents Thom as not intelligent—though Bret counters Susan’s depiction by saying that he and Thom have discussed Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and indie movie directors. Thom plays football and is the team’s starting quarterback, so he fits the popular high-school boy archetype, just as Susan ostensibly advances the popular high-school girl characterization. As Susan grows closer to Robert, Thom gets jealous, and their conflict destabilizes the entire social group. Playing the role of the jealous boyfriend, he has Bret spy on Susan. Redeeming himself, Thom tries to rescue Susan when the Trawler attacks her. Susan tells Thom that Bret is the killer, but Thom silences her. Bret has sexual feelings for Thom and fantasizes about being Thom’s loyal boyfriend, but nothing happens between them.

Ryan is a part of Bret’s social group. He’s Bret’s sexual partner, and they have an intensely sexual weekend together. Ryan’s family is less wealthy than those of his friends, so Ryan feels like he’s in another socioeconomic class and criticizes them for their privilege. Ryan plays football, and Bret calls him “the closeted jock, the classic cliché” (83). Though Bret’s statement reveals his fear of being a cliché, it also highlights a truth about Ryan and all the teens in their social circle, as they all feel compelled by social pressures to perform stereotyped identities that don’t match their true selves.

Matt and Bret have a sexual relationship before Matt’s murder. Bret sees Matt as an indiscriminate hedonist, like himself and most of their friends, stating that, “[H]e would’ve had sex with anybody, boy or girl, if they made themselves available to him” (132). As Matt lives in the pool house, he’s notably alienated from his parents. They’re unaware of his schedule and had no idea about his disappearance. This lack of parental supervision is typical of Bret’s social circle, though Matt’s parents seem even more uninvolved than most, leaving him especially vulnerable to the undercurrents of violence spreading through the West Side of Los Angeles. Matt’s murder is the first instance in which this growing violence intrudes directly into Bret’s personal life.

Terry and Liz are Debbie’s combative, problematic parents. Terry is a successful movie producer, and Liz is a former model with alcohol use disorder. Liz is emotionally abusive and berates her husband and his sexuality. Terry sexually assaults his daughter’s male friends, who are minors. Through Terry, Bret has the chance to write a movie script, but Terry takes advantage of his power over Bret to pressure him into an uncomfortable sexual interaction, though Bret doesn’t view himself as a victim. The photographs of Terry and Bret’s sexual encounter at the hotel add drama, as does Terry’s fall. Unlike Bret, Robert doesn’t accept Terry’s behavior, and Bret believes Robert pushed Terry to punish Terry for “groping” him.

Abigail is Robert’s aunt, and she’s a critical minor character because she provides Bret with Robert’s backstory, fueling Bret’s paranoid speculation that Robert is the Trawler and the person behind the diverse violence—Robert’s mother’s fall links to Terry’s fall, and the missing pets in Chicago connect to the missing pets in Los Angeles. Through Abigail, Bret creates a “timeline” that he believes makes Robert guilty. Yet Abigail doesn’t think Robert is the Trawler. She believes Robert is ultimately a victim, and after Robert’s death, she releases the stalkerish letters he received, which upends the heroic narrative Bret created for himself.