Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

Michael’s release from prison, along with the unresolved events that took place three years prior that led to his imprisonment, sets the plot in motion. Importantly, Michael’s actions make him a complex character with both admirable and questionable qualities. On the one hand, he is, like his mother, loyal to his father, Robert Cunningham. His desperation to receive information about his father’s death gets him caught up with Alan Holton. In this way, Michael is a caring son who wishes to right the wrong done to the family name. Yet his involvement with such a criminal, on its face, suggests duplicity and dishonesty. Indeed, Michael comes across as confident in his ability to manipulate both Holton and the McAuleys so that any negative repercussions can be avoided, and he will ultimately triumph, obtaining the photos he desperately wants.

The death of Alan Holton three years prior, however, foreshadows the way in which nothing goes as perfectly as planned for Michael. Michael was forced to involve Ernie in the cover-up of the death of Holton, certain that Ernie would remain loyal and keep the death of Holton—and Michael’s possession of the bag of money—a secret. Yet even when Ernie’s conscience ultimately leads him to testify against Michael, Michael does not begrudge his brother. Upon his long-anticipated arrival, Michael is warm and friendly to every family member, genuinely grateful for each of them. When he is accused of causing the death of Green Boots, he does not protest, but willingly complies with the “officer’s” insistence that he must remain locked in the Drying Room. Arguably, this compliance proves instrumental in making it easy for Jeremy to later murder Michael.

Importantly, before he is killed, Michael is able to assure Ernie that he holds no contempt for him, even after Ernie testified against him, and to pass along to Ernie the information needed to solve the mystery of Green Boots and of Robert’s involvement with police. Michael trusts Ernie once again, and that trust proves to cast the Cunningham name in a new light.

The rift between Ernie and his mother offers the first impression of Audrey Cunningham, painting her as bitter and cold. She highly condemns Ernie’s testifying against Michael at his trial, believing in unwavering family loyalty. Importantly, she appears to feel that Michael’s actions in killing Alan Holton were justifiable and do not define the person Michael truly is. She harbors resentment toward her first husband, Robert, for leaving the family to fend for itself after his murdering of the police officer, though she otherwise feels his criminal activities were forgivable. When it is revealed that she has approached the McAuleys regarding the ransom money, she can be deemed either as loyal, seeking to help Michael at any cost, or as conniving and secretive.

The clearest picture of her inner person is painted in the flashback scenes depicting the time immediately following Robert’s death. Her grief is evident here, as is her stress over needing to care for three young children unaided. Audrey’s coping mechanism, as Ernie iterates, is to merely make it through each day until the grief is no longer oppressive. Her strategy is to ignore the grief by making herself and her children too busy to have time to process it. This approach, arguably, leads to Jeremy being kidnapped. Though Audrey feels sadness and remorse for his “death,” she is intentionally dishonest with Ernie, Michael, and others, allowing them to believe that Jeremy has died and intentionally keeping the truth from them.

Initially the attorney, then friend, of Robert Cunningham, Marcelo serves as Michael’s attorney during the trial of the death of Alan Holton. Having married Audrey not long after Robert’s death, Michael and Ernie grew up with Marcelo and his daughter as a blended family. In many respects, Marcelo fits the mold of a ruthless, cutthroat attorney—evidenced by his success in securing a very short prison sentence for Michael. Outwardly, wealth, status, and material possessions appear important to him as Marcelo often draws attention to the expensive Rolex watch he wears. Ernie suspects that Marcelo, in his position of power and privilege, may have fairly substantial knowledge of the events involving Robert’s criminal involvement that he has withheld from Ernie, thus making him a suspect in the death of Green Boots, in Ernie’s estimation. Indeed, Ernie later determines that Marcelo did, indeed, know of Robert’s involvement in a criminal kidnapping ring as a police informant. In keeping this information from Ernie, Marcelo appears conniving and deceitful (though arguably loyal to Robert and Audrey to a fault). As he is an attorney, this secret suggests a kind of corruption on his part as well. Yet, by the end of the novel, Ernie arrives at an alternate way of viewing Marcelo’s actions: Though Marcelo deliberately tried to keep this knowledge from Ernie (even going so far as to plunge the rental truck into the lake so that the casket it contained could not be discovered), he did so in order to keep both Michael and Ernie safe. In truth, Marcelo feared that the same fate that befell Robert—due to his involvement with corrupt police—could befall Michael and Ernie. In this way, Marcelo is also a complex character who arguably attempts to right his own past mistakes, taking what actions he can to remain loyal to the remaining Cunninghams.

Ernie explains that, though Sofia is not a Cunningham by blood, he and his stepsister have grown closer since Michael’s incarceration. Sofia is regarded as a successful and capable surgeon and someone of whom her father has been staunchly supportive. When the weekend begins, she quickly establishes a kind of private alliance with Ernie, suggesting the two take refuge in one another from the oddities of the other family members. The joke bingo card she makes for Ernie (featuring the bad habits and frequent annoying behaviors of each family member) demonstrates her trust in Ernie. Sofia is somewhat reserved, sarcastic, and not overly warm. She acts as a partner and confidant of Ernie’s, aware of the bag of money in his possession. Her request for $50,000 casts her in a suspicious light, suggesting she may have done something nefarious, as she is unwilling to ask her father for the money. As the details surrounding the death of a patient under her surgical care come to light, Sofia also appears nonplussed. She shrugs off any culpability, insisting it is not uncommon for patients to die in surgery and that the death was not due to any negligence on her part. As the suspension of Sofia’s surgical license due to her substance dependency is revealed, however, the real cause of the death of the patient falls into place.

Throughout the novel, Sofia is highly intrigued by the Black Tongue murderer, using her medical knowledge to comprehend the deaths by ash suffocation. Her actions grow increasingly problematic as Ernie uncovers her theft of Marcelo’s Rolex watch. In the end, her ill actions are not the fault of any moral failing but of the grip of addiction Sofia finds herself in.

Michael’s wife is initially presented by Ernie as somewhat superficial and shallow. Her involvement in many multi-level marketing schemes showcases her desire to be perceived as a smart and successful businesswoman. In reality, her lack of financial success with these endeavors has landed her in debt. She is anxious about Michael’s return and somewhat naïve to the full extent of his involvement with Erin. Lucy smokes cigarettes in secret, suggesting she not only seeks a means of coping with stress and calming herself but also fears the judgment of others. Outward appearance is important to her. She insists each cigarette is her final one but is never able to quit completely, suggesting that her key flaw is her inability to follow through on a single goal—this more minor flaw parallels the way in which she switches from marketing scheme to marketing scheme without truly becoming successful at any of them.

Lucy’s actions prove instrumental in helping Ernie solve the mystery of the identity of Green Boots as the police officer who ticketed Lucy as she was en route to the resort. When Jeremy Cunningham forces Lucy to her death, Lucy becomes an unfortunate casualty of marrying into the Cunningham family. She is regarded, in the end, as undeserving of this fate.

Though a minor character, Ernie’s wife is important because of her allegiance to Michael. Ernie delays fully explaining the reason for their separation in a way that piques the readers’ interest but, more importantly, suggests Erin’s actions have hurt Ernie. Indeed, her affair with Michael suggests a kind of disloyalty that is condemned by the Cunningham family. Nonetheless, none of the family members appear to be angered by her presence at the weekend reunion. That Michael trusts her to assist with unearthing the police officer’s casket speaks highly of her, and, indeed, she comes across as pleasant, friendly, and caring. Importantly, she is not outwardly cruel or vicious to Ernie, and there is a general comfort and familiarity between the two, as if they are old friends rather than exes. Her shame and burdensome sadness over the death of her mother portray Erin as a genuinely kind and compassionate person who does not wish to harm others. Indeed, her father’s manipulation, by which he convinced Erin that her mother’s death was Erin’s fault, makes her a sympathetic character with good intentions.