Bones & All

Lee is around 19 years old, a cannibal, and functions as Maren’s first real love interest. Lee was a victim of childhood abuse and reserves most of his murders for, as Maren tells Sully, “people the world is better off without” (271). Like Maren, Lee didn’t have protective parents. In fact, his mother made it possible for many of her drunk boyfriends to mistreat him. Still, he admits to preferring the company of women, even though he is usually alone: “Women don’t give me so many reasons to hate them. They’re more honest. Not always, but most of the time” (173). Lee also dotes on his younger sister, Kayla, and hates that he can’t spend more time with her.

Lee is brave, has mechanical skills, and speaks the truth as he sees it, sometimes with too much bluntness. More than once, he tells Maren, “I’m not just gonna tell you what you want to hear” (147). He despises people who project false cheer or optimism. When the radio preacher annoys him, he tells Maren he can’t live in a “little bubble of sunshine and certainty” (154). Lee doesn’t pretend that the world will ever accept him, including the preacher’s flocks: “They lure you in with all that happy stuff about love and acceptance, then after they’ve got you they start telling you they need more money and Jesus doesn’t want you for a fair-weather friend” (152).

Lee is tormented by his memories of Rachel, his only girlfriend. After she saw him eat one of his mother’s abusive boyfriends, Rachel had to be institutionalized. When he tells Maren about Rachel, Lee cries, which is his most emotionally vulnerable moment of the story. He frequently returns to the hospital where she is a patient, hoping that he will eventually have a chance to explain himself to her and find closure.

As a narrative device, Lee gives Maren someone to rely on and someone who understands her. Lee may not always be affectionate, but he is loyal, as he shows when he waits in the Bridewell parking lot for a week, waiting for Maren to return. When he protects her from Sully, it is the second time he saves her life. This time, Lee becomes another man who will not take no for an answer; the difference, in his case, is that he knows what it will cost him. This allows Camille DeAngelis to experiment with the typical gender roles in fiction and in fairy tales. Lee does save Maren, but it results in his death as she consumes him. In that moment, the author frames Maren as an echo of Stuart’s description of spiders and sexual cannibalism in sixth grade.

Sully is the novel’s villain and, as revealed late in the narrative, Maren’s paternal grandfather. Sully is an old, unrepentant eater who functions as Maren’s primary antagonist. Initially, he acts as if he has a sincere desire to mentor Maren. This has the potential to be helpful, since she has no authority figures in her life, let alone someone to help her understand her nature better. However, Sully acts out of pure self-interest. He withholds information far more often than he provides it, and he delights in concealing things from Maren that she needs to know.

Sully serves two narrative roles beyond that of the villain. He shows Maren that family is not enough to bond people. He doesn’t abandon her like her mother, but he is also willing to kill her for slighting him and rejecting his offer to become a family. Their shared DNA has nothing to do with whether he values her. Second, Sully provides the reader with the sight of a sadistic cannibal who is essentially a serial killer. His rope even revolts Lee, who has seen more than his share of disgusting sights.

Sully tries to get Maren to accept her nature, but he does so in a mocking way. He says, “Can’t help what you are, Missy. That’s rule number one” (76). Whether this is true or not, he doesn’t provide any more rules. When he says that they should stick together and that there’s no need to be lonelier than necessary, he’s proposing a warped idea of a family unit, despite his previous insistence that eaters always have to be alone. Sully’s need for family—assuming that any of it is authentic—becomes clearer after Maren learns that Sully thinks the Yearlys stole Frank from him by adopting him. During their final fight, Maren pities Sully. He is wretched, unloved, and old, and he dies alone. He shows Maren that while her mother might not have been perfect, she still did her best. When Lee kills him, Sully and Maren both see his true nature. Despite his bravado, he has no chance against Lee, a younger, stronger, and kinder version of himself.