The Weight of Blood

Thomas Washington is Maddy’s father, whom she calls “Papa.” Papa is fanatically religious and was raised in a small, eccentric Christian church founded by his father. Papa is excessively controlling and obsessed with the past, specifically a romanticized version of the American postwar/1950s era. Having himself been raised by a controlling, fanatically religious father, Papa takes the same approach with Maddy. He fears she is inherently evil but believes he can “fix” her through proper conditioning. Papa believes Maddy is tainted because she was conceived outside of marriage and through an interracial relationship, both of which he considers sinful. He thinks that God has punished Maddy for his sins by giving Maddy magical, potentially evil powers and that society will punish Maddy if they find out she’s biracial. He tries to shelter Maddy and keep her identity secret so that she won’t have to suffer because of the circumstances of her birth over which she has no control. However, this sheltering and secrecy harm Maddy because, forced to pass as white, she comes to believe that Blackness is shameful.

Papa himself was failed through his own rearing and education, resulting in a lack of the basic sense of how to raise a child with a healthy sense of self. However, Papa is not a pure villain because his impulse was, at least for a while, to protect his daughter. Believing Maddie had inherited the magic from his mother and that she would turn out evil, he allowed tragedy to come to fruition by abusing her for years, preventing her from socializing, teaching her to be ashamed of herself and her race, feeding her misinformation about history, and more. Papa seemed to think that raising Maddy was just delaying the inevitable, and with his attitude, it was, because he didn’t give her the means to accept herself, her race, or the magic powers that she inherited from his mother. The novel ends on a hopeful note that maybe, at least, Maddy’s mother can provide the love and acceptance necessary for Maddy to become the best version of herself and gain control of her potentially violent powers. Papa and Maddy’s relationship is tragic because of his outdated ideologies, which prevent him from accepting and loving his daughter or himself.

Mireille Germain is Maddy’s mother, and although she is physically absent and even presumed dead for much of the novel, she is still an important character because she provides Maddy with hope that she is not doomed to be evil. Maddy’s father lies and says Mireille died in childbirth. He doesn’t share her name with Maddy and omits it on documents, so nobody knows who Maddy’s mom is. Thomas can then keep up the masquerade that Maddy is only white. When Maddy discovers the journal her mother left, even when she still believes her mother is dead, reading the words (which contain love and encouragement in addition to warnings) gives new hope that maybe her father was wrong about some things and that maybe someone else could love her for who she is. This idea comforts Maddy and opens the possibility that Maddy will find Mireille after the prom carnage.

Later in the journal, Mireille had recorded Maddy’s birth date, confirming she did not die in childbirth; later, the reader learns she’s been alive and writing to Maddy letters (which Thomas hides) for years, and it’s implied that Maddy goes to find Mireille at the novel’s end. Mireille’s journal and letters include invitations for Maddy to come find her when the time comes. Mireille knew that Thomas would not be a suitable guardian for Maddy forever, but she had to leave without Maddy because Thomas threatened to kill Maddy. Ironically, after years of Thomas warning Maddy that her mother was somehow evil or dangerous, Thomas is the true dangerous parent, and it seems that Mireille has Maddy’s best interests in mind. She might not have the magic powers herself, but she’s willing to help Maddy learn to control them, prevent trouble, and live a good life instead of trying to make her into someone she’s not and then attempting to murder her when this impossible plan doesn’t work.

Kenny is a popular, Black football star who is Maddy’s classmate and love interest, although he also is dating Wendy. At the beginning of the novel, Kenny is the only Black kid in his clique of popular kids. Partly because he never reacts to conflict or racism, everyone seems to think Kenny doesn’t care about racism. They know him only superficially; he does care, and there is underlying tension between him and his friends from the beginning. Because of Kenny’s father’s lofty goals of Kenny becoming a professional football player after playing for the University of Alabama, Kenny has also been instructed to keep quiet and be agreeable no matter what other people are doing. For years, he pretends that nothing bothers him while all the microaggressions slowly eat away at him. Although everyone knows Kenny is Black, his journey mirrors Maddy’s because he has to pretend to be someone else until he reaches a breaking point and can’t hide his true feelings and true self any longer. He pretends not to care about racism and to be content all the time, but he also lets others think he doesn’t think deeply or love reading and writing (which he does). He truly likes football, but it’s not his whole life, even though he pretends it is to please others.

Kenny and Maddy allow each other to grow because they see and validate one another’s most authentic selves. Previously, both had learned that love and acceptance could only be gained if they hid their true selves and worked only to please others. This choice is unhealthy for both characters; for Kenny, over time, the weight of pretending and of standing by while others committed injustices is too heavy. His choice to leave town at the novel’s end, presumably to be with Maddy, is a choice to live freely rather than to hide, even though they are hiding to protect their own survival. They have reversed the role of deception in their lives; by living as their authentic selves in hiding, they never have to live in the open as people they are not. They both feel that in their previous lives, they had to hide in plain sight and couldn’t share their true selves. Together, they are free to share their authentic selves with at least one person.

Wendy is Maddy’s white classmate and Kenny’s girlfriend. Although Wendy and her friends constantly bullied Maddy throughout the years, Wendy begins feeling remorse and regret after the incident in Mrs. Morgan’s class. Wendy is from a working-class background and has worked hard to distract other people from this fact. To some extent, Wendy is also hiding in plain sight, and her attempts to erase or hide her socioeconomic class echo Maddy’s initial attempts to conceal her true racial identity. Perhaps in part due to this reason, Wendy eventually develops empathy toward Maddy and is able to genuinely help her. However, before she reaches that point, she is at first too concerned about repairing her damaged reputation, and instead of genuinely trying to help, she is trying to make herself look like a good person. Like Maddy and Kenny, Wendy struggles with the weight of pretending to be things she’s not. She struggles with the expectations of white womanhood, in which she strives to reach perfection, at least in others’ eyes.

As with Maddy and Kenny, Wendy’s fixation on how others perceive her impairs her ability to do the right thing and makes her unhappy over time. Unlike Maddy and Kenny, Wendy’s ability to deceive herself is stronger for much of the novel. Despite doubts about her relationship with Kenny, her friendships with Jules and others, and her behavior at school, she convinces herself that maintaining the status quo is the best course of action because it causes the least amount of disruption to the imaginary future she’s created for herself and Kenny.

Jules is another white classmate of Maddy’s and Wendy’s best friend throughout most of the novel. She mostly functions as a villain, constantly bullying Maddy and spewing racially charged comments and pulling cruel, racist pranks. Jules is popular, outlandish, self-centered, and entitled, with no concept of consequences for her actions. She feels emboldened to do anything she wants, assuming that her father and his lawyers can sort out any mess she gets herself into. Jules’s family and other privileged people wield power in the isolated community of Springville. Because it’s far from larger cities, established families reproduce the same outdated ideologies generation after generation. However, with Jules’s generation graduating high school in 2014, modern technologies such as social media have strengthened the community’s connection to the rest of the country and world. Although Jules’s father may have been able to get her out of most messes that are contained locally, he cannot get her out of repercussions when her level of racism makes the national news.

When Jules finally experiences consequences, she still insists on blaming others (specifically Maddy) and won’t take responsibility or be introspective so that she can avoid making similar mistakes in the future. She has no interest in changing and expects others to take her egregious behavior in stride. Jules is ironically spared in the carnage even though she was the lead bully Maddy had and one of the school’s most overt racists. Despite surviving the prom, she still argues that she was wronged. Meanwhile, most of her classmates died as a result of her behavior, but she still thinks she had her life stolen from her by someone else. Jules represents The Effects of Bullying and Exclusion as well as Power, Race, and Racism in the Community because, due to her own race and her family’s power, she causes grave destruction, and the consequences she faces are comparatively small.

Kali is Kenny’s younger sister and the founder/president of the Black Student Union at their high school. Like Kenny, Kali is an intellectual and enjoys reading, but she doesn’t hide her authentic self. Kali is also a proponent of social justice, organizing protests and contacting the school board to counter racist ideologies in the community. Kali is unlike her brother (at first) in that she doesn’t want to hide her identity or her feelings about oppression and is disappointed when others (such as Kenny and Maddy) remain quiet. Because their dad is grooming Kenny, but not Kali, to be a football star, Kali is allowed to do things Kenny isn’t allowed to do, such as read books that aren’t for school, have various Black friends, start clubs, and choose her own career/life path. Kali resents Kenny for most of the novel because she thinks he’s abandoning her and Black people in general because he has a lucrative future planned. However, Kenny gets her to understand that he’s just trying to survive in the world given their dad’s and everyone else’s expectations of him, which are different from their expectations for Kali. This is a breaking point in the siblings’ relationship and helps them learn to help others.

While Kali often accuses others, such as Kenny, Maddy, and Wendy, of not helping Black people, Kali is dedicated from the start. Still, she has some blind spots that prevent her from helping certain or even empathizing with certain Black people. Through conversations with her brother, Kali learns that different Black people have different struggles and have to live up to different expectations based on their gender, body type, skin color, parents, religion, and other factors. In turn, Kenny learns that his sister is right that it’s not healthy or productive to pretend like racism doesn’t concern him. This enables both to more fully realize their goals—both personal and political—in the future.