Night Road

Jude Farraday is 46 years old in Part 1 and is described as beautiful with a pale face and sleek blond hair. She loves having a sense of control over all aspects of her life, and this is the characteristic from which Hannah demonstrates Jude’s character development. Because she likes control, Jude’s Garden is her sanctuary and provides her with a world of order that she can change and adapt as she sees fit, just like she does in her children’s lives. Jude is particularly controlling of her children because she had difficulty conceiving and delivering them. She had three miscarriages before she became pregnant with the twins, and the pregnancy itself was difficult. Thus, Jude is overprotective of her children, thinking that the more she controls them, the more she can protect them. Like Lexi, Jude experienced significant loss when she was young. Her father died when she was seven, and the grief caused her mother, Caroline, to withdraw from her daughter completely, leaving Jude to be raised by nannies. This rift in Jude’s family makes her determined not to become like her mother. Hannah hence draws several parallels between Jude and Lexi.

Jude’s character shift occurs after Mia’s death; she thus epitomizes the theme of The Influence of Loss. Before this event, Jude was a very involved mother who prided herself on her ability to control her family and her life. She includes herself in the everyday details of the twins’ lives, including participating in school groups and clubs and even walking Mia to class on her first day of high school. After Mia’s death, however, she can’t look at Zach without remembering Mia, so she ceases to act like his mother. For years, Jude stressed about what college her children would attend, yet when she and Miles take Zach to USC, she doesn’t help Zach set up his dorm room before she returns to Washington. Jude continues her descent into grief to the point that she can’t be a supportive grandmother to Grace once she’s born. Jude is aware of her lack but has no power to change it until Lexi returns and forces Jude out of her grief by reminding her of what Mia would want and the loving mother Jude used to be. While Jude is not the protagonist, the novel’s climax revolves around her emotional realizations. Like Lexi, Jude also has nonlinear character development, and in the falling action Jude becomes a caring and involved mother and grandmother. Her significant change makes her a dynamic character in the novel.

Zach Farraday is Jude and Miles’ son and Mia’s twin brother. He is very popular in school, has green eyes, and is athletic and confident. Zach is much more confident than Mia and has many friends and girlfriends throughout high school. He is also intelligent; he enters his senior year with a 3.96 GPA and earns a perfect score on the SAT. Because of his intelligence and his father’s experience as a surgeon, Zach wants to go to medical school. These qualities make him a conventional romantic interest. However, Hannah makes him a three-dimensional character: Despite his outward confidence he fears failure and questions if he will succeed in college. He also hates hurting people, which makes his mother’s rejection after Mia’s death harder for him to navigate and overcome. His desire to please his family members also causes him stress when he meets Lexi and immediately has feelings for her. Zach knows from experience that Mia’s friends are off-limits to him romantically, yet he is so drawn to Lexi that he eventually gives up trying to fight his feelings and tells Lexi that he has always loved her. Through Zach, Hannah hence establishes a conflict based on the conventions of the star-crossed lover trope.

Zach’s characterization also speaks to the theme of The Influence of Loss. After Mia’s death, Zach feels the weight of Jude’s blame and carries a lot of guilt for the accident that killed his sister. He knows that he was supposed to be the designated driver and feels that Mia’s death is his fault because he drank and ignored that responsibility. Jude allows him to carry this guilt until she realizes the harm that it has done to him. By the novel’s end, Zach has lost his handsomeness and has a haggard appearance and sad eyes. Despite his guilt, Zach is very successful in college and medical school. Because he takes responsibility for Grace after she’s born, Zach leaves USC and attends school in Seattle. He graduates early and moves directly into medical school, where he also performs well in addition to being a single father. This gives Zach the quality of a stoic hero. Zach rises to the challenge of fatherhood and excels. Zach also takes responsibility for his role in his sister’s death and does what he can to heal his family and overcome his grief.

Mia Farraday, Jude and Miles’s daughter and Zach’s twin sister, is 14 years old at the novel’s beginning but turns 18 in Chapter 8. She is the tragic figure in the novel. She’s quieter and more introverted than Zach—she didn’t speak until she turned four—and is much less popular and outgoing at school. Mia is pale and has a heart-shaped face. She starts high school with braces and acne, as most teenagers do, but she grows into a beautiful, confident, and happy young woman through her friendship with Lexi. During her senior year, Mia gets her first boyfriend, Tyler, but when they break up, she’s afraid that she won’t find anyone else who will like her. This event shows that she still has some insecurity. Mia dreams of attending the University of Southern California for drama but also wants to attend the same college as Zach. During the beginning of the novel, she is growing and maturing, but she still needs the safety and security of her twin to ensure her success. Hannah uses this to build the tragedy in the novel, since Mia dies in the midst of a sense of character development.

Mia’s death initiates the theme of The Influence of Loss. It sends Lexi and the Farraday family reeling, and they spend the remainder of the book working to overcome their grief and loss. Although Mia dies in Chapter 12, her character lives on through Grace, Lexi and Zach’s daughter. This is reinforced by the fact that Hannah quickly follows Mia’s death with Grace’s birth. Grace has a strong physical resemblance to Mia, yet one difference between the two characters is that Grace doesn’t smile or laugh, whereas Mia always laughs and smiles after becoming best friends with Lexi. Hannah hence builds dramatic tension by juxtaposing the characters of Mia and Grace. Once Jude beings to heal from losing Mia, she opens up to her granddaughter, and Grace becomes just as happy as Mia.