Crank

The mother of Kristina, Leigh, and Jake, Marie is a writer married to Scott. Her last name is not mentioned in the text. Marie is presented through Kristina’s perspective and emerges as a good but flawed character. Beautiful and multitalented, Marie has high expectations of Kristina. Marie is a loving, hardworking parent who has raised Leigh and Kristina as a single mother and has established a warm home for them with Scott. However, Marie’s protectiveness of Kristina often verges on extreme, such as when she tries to keep Kristina away from the latter’s biological father. Marie is shown to be insightful and observant. She immediately senses a bothersome change in Kristina when Kristina returns from Albuquerque.

Suspecting that Kristina is making unwise choices, Marie constantly tries to protect her daughter, but she fails. Marie’s character serves as a stand-in for Hopkins, who herself is the mother of a daughter dealing with meth addiction. Marie’s painful struggle is thus inspired by the experiences of real mothers of people dealing with addiction.

While Marie initially tries to deal with Kristina with firmness, grounding her for lying and breaking curfew, by the end of the novel she has softened toward Kristina, realizing her authoritative parenting style may not be the best approach for her daughter. Marie offers Kristina a safe haven during her pregnancy and helps Kristina raise Hunter. Kristina idealizes her childhood with Marie, who was once a perfect mother, and feels neglected now that Marie has married Scott and expanded her personal and professional life. Marie’s name is reminiscent of the biblical Mary, suggesting that she too will have to watch her child suffer. However, she evolves to better cope with Kristina’s addiction.

Never named in the text, Kristina’s father is a man in his mid-forties who works an off-the-books job at a bowling alley in Albuquerque. A complex character, Kristina’s father has been absent from her life since her parents divorced when she was eight. Her mother’s comments suggest the divorce was partly because of her father’s anger issues and his own struggle with addiction. Kristina remembers her father differently, as someone who pampered her. She thinks of him as “the Prince of Albuquerque” (19). However, once Kristina visits her father, her perception of him changes. He is unable to communicate with her and leaves her alone for long stretches of time. He uses drugs while Kristina visits him and even consumes meth alongside her. These behaviors suggest that he has lost his way due to his addiction.

Despite his absence through much of Kristina’s life, he is a looming presence in the text. Because he neglects Kristina, she harbors a reserve of sadness that manifests partly as anger at her mother and partly as her own growing addiction. After Kristina returns from visiting her father, he calls her just a few times to inquire about her well-being. Even after learning about Kristina’s pregnancy, he remains distant. His behavior indicates that he is a flat, static character, stuck in a rut.

A young man who is close to Kristina’s age, Adam is Kristina’s first love and an important character in the text. Kristina describes Adam as improbably handsome and gentle. Through her eyes, he appears almost a knight in shining armor, rescuing her from the boredom of Albuquerque. However, Adam tends to be manipulative and dishonest. He flirts with Kristina even though he has a girlfriend and uses rehearsed dialogues to impress her, such as, “I know what you’re thinking… / That you’re too good for me… / But you’re wrong” (49). Adam is also the person who introduces Kristina to meth. Kristina later acknowledges that falling in love with Adam is the one moment that irrevocably changed her life. Later, Adam pressures Kristina to give him sexual pleasure and tattoos a heart on her using unsanitary methods.

While these behaviors show Adam has some deeply problematic traits, he is never presented as an outright evil character. Adam is tender with Kristina, and he struggles with addiction and a troubled home life. His father left because of drug use, and his older brother died of an overdose. A pivotal moment in Adam’s development as a character occurs when his girlfriend, Lynx, falls off the balcony, upset over his infidelity with Kristina. Adam visits Lynx in the hospital and follows her rehabilitation closely. Though he treats Kristina less than perfectly, by the end of the novel he is trying to raise a family of his own with Lynx. His future is uncertain, but it does appear that he is trying to do the best he can.

Dubbed Reno High’s bad boy, Chase is Kristina’s second boyfriend and a largely sympathetic character. A fine athlete who is not as handsome as Adam, Chase is proof that first impressions can be deceiving. Chase initially appears sexually aggressive to Kristina, but over time she realizes that he is far deeper and more tender than she had thought. Significantly, Kristina notes that Chase is the first boy to ask her permission before kissing her. He quotes Shakespeare and Keats to Kristina, displaying that he has many interests.

Chase is more measured than Kristina and careful with his choices. Though he initially offers Kristina meth, over time he realizes the severity of her addiction and shows discomfort around her drug use. When Kristina offers him meth via the tinfoil method, he refuses, saying, “I’ve set boundaries” (389). After Kristina finds out she is pregnant, Chase offers to marry her, though he is not the father. Chase comforts Kristina after she is brutally raped and represents a softer, gentler kind of masculinity.