Suzanne is Wrecker’s stepsister. After a car accident a few years previously, Suzanne uses a wheelchair. She provides a home for herself and Wrecker using settlement money she was paid after the accident. Suzanne is nurturing toward Wrecker in a way that his biological parents are not, making sure that his homework is done, that he is eating well, and that he feels listened to. She also respects his autonomy and supports his interests—things that his actual parents struggle to do. She models for Wrecker The Importance of Caring for Others.

Suzanne also exemplifies What It Means to Belong to a Place: She is an ethical and community-focused person who advocates for Key West’s marine environment. She is confident and brave as she stands up for what she believes is right: traveling to Tallahassee to demand meetings with state government, giving interviews to the press, and even parasailing during a protest flotilla despite having partial paralysis. She does not let her physical disability get in the way of her independence and takes pride in doing everything for herself that she can.

Willi is in Wrecker’s grade at school. She has curly hair and green eyes and loves soccer and skateboarding. She is intelligent, getting straight A’s in her classes, and is self-assured enough to spend time in the Key West cemetery at night without getting spooked by its atmosphere. Her confidence also shows in her breezy and sometimes sarcastic quips, and in the ways she persists in making friends with Wrecker despite his initial reluctance to let her into his life. Like Wrecker, she loves Key West and is troubled by its racist past. Also like Wrecker, she announces that she doesn’t “ever want to leave Key West” (295), illustrating What It Means to Belong to a Place.

Like Wrecker, Willi has a difficult home life. Willi’s wealthy parents neglect her, leaving her home with an elderly nanny while they travel. These circumstances sometimes put Willi into a moody, withdrawn funk, making it hard for her to be a consistently good friend to Wrecker. Willi is a dynamic character, however, who evolves from being somewhat self-centered to learning The Importance of Caring for Others. After she ghosts Wrecker repeatedly, Wrecker lectures her on being a better friend—and she takes this to heart, showing throughout the final section of the novel that she is a brave companion who can be relied on during difficult times.

Quantraine is the novel’s primary antagonist. Throughout much of the story, he is referred to as “Silver Mustache” because, not knowing his actual name, Wrecker chooses this distinctive feature to identify him. Quantraine is a smuggler, highly-placed in a criminal organization that, among other things, sells forged COVID vaccination cards. Quantraine is a completely self-centered character who places his own comfort and convenience ahead of any other values. In his pursuit of money, he has people killed, coerces Wrecker into acting as his assistant, and endangers countless lives.

Quantraine is a repugnant person in other ways, as well. He is a dangerous driver, shows no regard for his own associates’ happiness or safety, and does not believe in protecting the environment, finding this to be a foolish waste of time and money. He is smug, boastful, and crass, making it clear that his perspective is the only one that matters to him.

Carole is Wrecker’s mother, Valdez Jones VII’s ex-wife, and Roger’s current wife. She met Roger while she was working as a physical therapist but no longer works since they married. Carole is in some ways a loving mother to Wrecker who worked hard to provide for him after being abandoned by her first husband, but she is too self-centered to connect with her son in a meaningful way. Wrecker comments that they are not “as close as some mothers and sons” (28), but he is grateful that at least they do not fight. When Carole married Roger, she allowed him to pressure Wrecker into moving out, even though Wrecker was only 14. Carole shows little interest in helping Wrecker process his anger about his father’s abandonment of the family, and at the end of the novel she blithely announces a move to California without consulting Wrecker.

Carole is a vain woman—Suzanne refers to her as “Princess High Maintenance” (31)—who much of her time and energy researching, planning, and undergoing cosmetic surgeries that she imagines will make her more beautiful. Carole refuses to wear a protective mask to lessen her chances of getting COVID, because she believes it will impact the results of her plastic surgery. Carole also does not bother to get herself vaccinated. She scorns Suzanne’s activism, because she does not understand being altruistic.

Carole is a dynamic character, however, who changes slightly with Wrecker’s influence. She gets vaccinated and begins wearing a mask after the shock of Roger’s illness. Her ability to see beyond her own immediate concerns expands a bit—as evidenced by the donation she makes to Friends of Blue Waters.

Valdez Jones VII, who goes by the stage name “Austin Breakwater” for most of the novel, is Wrecker’s father and Carole’s ex-husband. His abandonment of Wrecker many years in the past is a lasting wound for Wrecker and exemplifies Valdez VII’s self-centered, unrealistic thinking. Valdez VII left the family to pursue his dream of being a Nashville star, but has had little success. He is a passable singer but a terrible songwriter who plagiarizes other songs. His thinking is inauthentic and clichéd as he tries to engineer supposedly universal appeal.

Wrecker’s rejection of Valdez VII when he initially returns to Key West is part of the novel’s theme of Establishing Independence from Problematic Parents. Like Wrecker’s other parental figures, Valdez VII does grow during the story: He gives up his ill-fated Nashville career, moves home to Key West, and starts trying to write more authentic music. These changes help Wrecker warm to his father slightly, but he is still appropriately cautious, as Valdez VII is not an entirely changed man—he is not responsible enough to have a plan for somewhere to stay in Key West, for example, and tries to pressure Wrecker into letting him stay at Suzanne’s place.