All Her Little Secrets

Sam Littlejohn is Ellice’s younger brother. He is a static character, and his death drives the plot forward as Ellice looks to avenge him. Despite his upbringing and prison time, Sam has a positive outlook on life. He tries to change his life because he is tired of living off Ellice’s money. He decides that after he finishes the job with Hardy, he will take Vera back to Chillicothe and regain control over his life. However, Sam never gets to make these changes before Hardy murders him.

Sam is trusting and optimistic, which ultimately gets him into trouble. Since he has not experienced the same amount of trauma as Ellice, he believes that people can change. Rather than despising Martha, Sam understands that “she made bad decisions because she had bad options. And the alcohol didn’t help” (215). Sam understands that people are more than the mistakes that they make. Before Sam dies, Ellice realizes that her brother is a “good man with a kind heart who’d made mistakes” (216). Sam helps Ellice learn from her judgmental nature as he shows her the complexity of people’s lives. Ellice learns from Sam and realizes that she discriminates against people with criminal records, even though she does not know their life experiences.

Sam’s trust in the good of humanity leads to his murder because he truly believes that Hardy is not trying to frame him. At the same time, Sam’s trust inspires Ellice, because she realizes that her past mistakes do not make her inherently evil.

Willie Jay Groover is the novel’s antagonist. Although he only exists in the flashbacks of the novel, his actions pervade the novel. He is a static and flat character. As a police officer, Willie Jay represents the ways people in power can abuse their power to hurt other people. Ellice remembers that “Willie Jay Groover was the kind of man people in town talked about, but not in a good way” (36). He has blond hair and blue eyes and is a dangerous man, “a human wrecking ball that crushed flesh and spirit” (36). Willie Jay enjoys the power he holds and twists his ethics to abuse his power and those around him.

Although Willie Jay’s abuse is the worst against Ellice, she does not think to murder him until he locks Sam in a shed in the middle of the summer. Ellice realizes she must kill Willie Jay after because no one will protect Sam from Willie Jay without her there. Willie Jay’s cruelty shows even in his last moments as he makes lewd comments to Ellice. Ellice feels joy from Willie Jay’s death as his abuse dies with him, and she thinks, “Willie Jay was never going to smoke another cigar or burn another piece of human flesh” (330).