The Sweet Hereafter

Abbot is the husband of Dolores Driscoll. He was a carpenter but suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair. He speaks with difficulty and is incomprehensible to most people, except Dolores. Abbott speaks almost in riddles, but is wise and logical. Abbott tells Dolores not to get involved in the lawsuit regarding the accident. He recognizes and states that only the other people of the town, and not random and unfamiliar jurors, can truly decide if Dolores has committed a crime. 

Abbott’s “gaze alone can make a powerful statement” (243); in fact, Dolores wonders if her sons moved away just to get away from their father’s gaze. Even Stephens is unnerved by Abbott’s strangeness and intensity. Dolores admits that the love between her and Abbott became deeper and more complicated after the stroke, because she came to know and appreciate his mind over his body. Dolores describes him as courageous for dealing with the stroke as well as he has. Although Dolores and Abbott are extremely close, at the end of the novel, Dolores feels that the accident has separated her from Abbott.

Ansel is a Vietnam veteran who married his long-time sweetheart, Lydia, when he returned from the war. He bought a gas station and car repair garage and helped rehabilitate veterans by putting them to work in the garage. He and Lydia had two children, twins Jessica and Mason. A few years before the accident, Lydia became ill and died of cancer. A year or so later, Ansel began an affair with Risa Walker, who owns the Bide-a-Wile Motel with her husband, Wendell. 

Ansel describes himself as a self-contained man and “probably not very approachable” (63). He admits that he likes to be the strong, silent man in charge. His parents left when he was young, and he cared for his younger siblings alone. His father never finished anything and was a disappointment. Ansel has spent his life trying to avoid being like his father. 

Ansel’s two children, twins Jessica and Mason, both die in the bus accident. Ansel witnesses the accident because he is driving behind the bus in his truck. He tries to convince the people of the town not to get involved with lawsuits and believes there is no one to blame for the accident, that no one can really help him or the other parents who have lost their children, and that a lawsuit will only harm the people of the town. 

Before the accident, people looked up to Billy Ansel and considered him an honorable man. After the accident, he descends into alcoholism. The relationship between Risa and Ansel ends, as does any possibility that they might ultimately end up together.

Ansel appears at the end of the novel, and, even though he is drunk, acts nobly toward Dolores. He sits with her and helps Abbott and explains to Dolores that Nichole Burnell has lied under oath and said that Dolores was driving the bus at over seventy miles per hour. In the last chapter, Ansel appears completely emotionally destroyed by the accident and it becomes obvious that he has slipped into full-blown alcoholism.

Ansel describes Risa as intense, unadorned, shy, and private. She was upbeat and warm before the accident, although her smile always betrayed an underlying sadness (61). She wears mannish clothes and, according to Ansel, is not particularly sexy, although he fantasizes about her and tries to seduce her. It is Risa, not Ansel, that begins the affair. Risa is unhappy in her marriage because she has dreams and works toward them while Wendell is lazy and unhelpful. Risa loved her son, Sean, deeply, and is so overtaken by grief after Sean’s death in the bus accident that she becomes a different person. She tries to rationalize what happened by saying that she saw it coming, because she cannot accept the idea that it was a mere accident, although she does have compassion for Dolores, who she says must be “destroyed” by what happened. Ultimately, Risa and Wendell drop out of the lawsuit, separate from one another, and begin divorce proceedings.

Wendell Walker is the husband of Risa Walker. Together, they run the very unsuccessful Bide-a-Wile Motel. While Risa has dreams, and works on the motel, Wendell is largely lazy and, according to Billy Ansel, “didn’t really give a damn about much” (58). Both Risa and Wendell deeply loved their son, Sean, who suffered from a learning disability but was oddly excellent at video games. After the accident, Wendell is not inert, like many other characters; instead, he is angry and proactive. Wendell reveals to attorney Mitchell Stephens that he hates or holds grudges against most of the people of the town of Sam Dent. Stephens describes both Wendell and Risa as angry with and frustrated by how poor they are, and how what they want from the lawsuit is money. 

Mitchel Stephens is in his fifties and is tall, thin, and angular, with curly grey hair. He is wealthy, drives a Mercedes, and is a partner at a New York law firm. He specializes in negligence lawsuits and drives down to Sam Dent as soon as he hears about the accident. Stephens is cynical about American culture and the role he believes it has played in taking children, in one way or another, away from their parents. Stephens is extremely smart, an excellent manipulator, and a good strategist. He gets a high from working on negligence lawsuits that he cannot get anywhere else, in part because it gives him singleness of purpose. Stephens is admittedly primarily fueled by anger. In particular, Stephens is angry and heartbroken that his daughter, Zoe, is a drug addict that he has been unable to help or save. By the end of his chapter, Stephens’ relationship with Zoe changes because, in many ways, he accepts that she will die and that he can do nothing to stop it. 

Nichole is an eighth-grade beauty queen and cheerleader. She is popular as a baby sitter and has a maternal streak. In Nichole’s chapter, we learn the secret beneath her exterior perfection: that she has been repeatedly sexually abused by her father, Sam Burnell. This abuse has warped Nichole’s relationship with men, and Nichole acts like a “prude” with boys she dates and keeps them at distance. 

Nichole was in the bus at the time of the accident and broke her back. She wakes up partially paralyzed and does not have the use of her legs. She feels suspicious toward the doctors and nurses and dislikes the hospital. After she comes home, her life shifts, as she no longer attends school or sees her previous friends. In a reversal, she feels empowered after the accident to make her own decisions and stand up to her parents. She begins to cultivate her mind and meets other disabled children who make her feel less strange and alone. She feels instinctively that the lawsuit is morally wrong, and ultimately decides to completely undermine the suit by testifying in a deposition that Dolores was driving too fast. This action demonstrates that she now has control over her life and is no longer the child she was before the accident, while at the same time offering that there are both positive and negative aspects to coming of age and making decisions for one’s self. 

From the outside, Sam appears an ideal father. He builds Nichole special ramps and room modifications to ease her transition back into being home from the hospital. Sam does push Nichole into doing the lawsuit and deposition, in part because Sam and Mary previously enjoyed the reflected glory of Nichole’s beauty and popularity, and they feel the accident has harmed not just Nichole, but them as well. Underneath the veneer of the perfect father, however, is the truth: Sam has been sexually abusing Nichole whenever they are alone together. After the accident, Nichole uses this knowledge, which she keeps secret, to turn the tables on her father and try to control him. He tries to apologize after Nichole has destroyed the lawsuit, although it appears that the damage he has done is irreversible. In any event, he has lost all power over Nichole and the book suggests he will never forgive himself.

Mary, Nichole’s mother, is largely ineffectual, a compulsive eater, and is someone who tries to smooth over difficulties and avoid confrontation. She is completely ignorant of the fact that her husband, Sam, has been sexually abusing their daughter, Nichole. Mary lives vicariously through her daughter’s beauty and success and is mostly described from Nichole’s perspective. Nichole does not respect her mother or take her seriously, possibly because her mother failed to protect her against her father.