Betty

Landon is the father of Leland, Fraya, Waconda, Yarrow, Flossie, Betty, Trustin, and Lint. He says that he was no one until their mother, Alka, asked him his name and he got to be a father and a husband. Landon is the lifeline for his children—he instills in them a love for nature and the ability to tell stories to ease the pain of the world. When Betty feels helpless at school or under her mother’s grasp, she thinks of her father and believes that he will help her. When she comes to him in pain, he empowers her. He tells his children that they are important and powerful even when the wider world tells them otherwise, and he faithfully encourages their artistic pursuits and passions.

He is different from other men in their town. He is Cherokee, which makes him an outsider to start, but he also does not value the things other people value. He has no desire for money or status. He works hard, knows the land, and makes his own art. He carries on the Cherokee wisdom and traditions through gardening and teaching his children what his mother and grandmother taught him. He eases the pain in the lives of others through his medicine, storytelling, and kindness. While his wife experiences depression, he shows her constant love and support, even when she causes their children pain. Throughout the book, as he tells his children how important they are, Landon loses sight of his own importance. With his kneecap shattered in an act of violence by the racist men at the mine, and having worked hard jobs his entire life, he ages more quickly than most. When he dies, his packed funeral is a testament to the kind of man he was. Betty leaves Breathed soon after Landon’s death, as he is the symbol of her childhood; with his absence, she is forced to move on.

Fraya is the oldest Carpenter sister. Four years younger than her older brother, Leland, it is later revealed that she was Landon and Alka’s first child together. Fraya is gentle and kind, always standing up for Betty when their other siblings taunt her. She loves to sing and write in her journal, but she writes in a code known only to her, so when she dies in her early twenties, no one can understand what it says. Her singing is her way of telling the story of her life through metaphors without telling the truth: that Leland has repeatedly molested and raped her since she was five. Once Betty knows this truth, she understands the meanings of Fraya’s songs. Fraya loses her life trying to keep the secret of the rape, and Betty views her as a Christ figure, having lived a saintly life and died for the sins of others.

Flossie is the middle sister. She loves attention and believes that she is special—prettier and destined for a bigger future than anyone else. Flossie and Betty spend their childhood together, sharing a room, sharing secrets, and coming of age around the same time. Flossie’s dream is to go to Hollywood to act, and when her mother tells her to have a child with a rich man in Breathed, she does just that, thinking that it will give her the means to pursue her dream of stardom. Flossie never wanted to be a mother, evidenced by the fact that she attempts to kill Nova by putting him on the train tracks. Soon after, Nova falls and sustains a brain injury, and she flees motherhood for California, leaving her child with her mother-in-law. She never becomes a star, but in her pursuit of fame and glamor, she becomes addicted to drugs. Her death reflects the way she lived: in pursuit of something better.

Lint is the youngest member of the Carpenter family. Experiencing mental illness from a young age, Lint finds relief in collecting rocks. He experiences physical symptoms from his mental illness, and he sometimes elaborately stages these symptoms, though his awareness of their performativity is ambiguous. He eventually develops enough self-awareness to explain to Betty why he does this: He hopes that if he can translate his mental illness into physical illness, his father will be able to help him. He wants to protect everyone from the dark forces he sees in the world. It is in his nature to protect and heal, and he works with Landon selling medicine to the people in Breathed.

Leland is the oldest Carpenter sibling and is later revealed to be the child of Alka and her father, who repeatedly raped Alka when she was a child and an adolescent. He comes in and out of Breathed throughout his siblings’ lives because of his various jobs. He looks exactly like his biological father and acts like him, too—he is unmoved by the suffering of others, whether humans or animals, and inflicts pain for his own pleasure. He molests Fraya starting when she is five years old, and he cages and starves the eagle she loves. Betty tries to fight back, but he is physically stronger than she is and tries to convince her that she is responsible for Fraya’s pain. Only after Landon dies is Betty able to openly state the truth about who Leland’s father is. Betty, Fraya, and Lint all refer to Leland as a kind of demon or monster.

Alka is the mother of the Carpenter children. She carries trauma from her childhood, during which her father repeatedly raped her with her mother’s tacit support. She is forced into motherhood when she becomes pregnant as a result of this abuse, and she quickly marries Landon to hide the truth of her child’s paternity.

Alka often threatens suicide and attempts it once by slitting her wrists. She is obsessed with the color yellow and wishes that she could see life through this color rather than in the same way she always has. She tries to transfer her pain to Betty by telling her what happened to her, and she often calls Betty ugly because her skin is dark. Alka is depressed and struggles to be a constant, supportive, caring mother, but she loves her children and sometimes shines. When dealing with tragedy, Alka tends to bury herself in daily work like cooking or repetitive acts like swinging. Only later in the novel does she indirectly and unintentionally begin to process what happened to her.