Fates and Furies

Born to a British family, Mathilde, born Aurelie, shows an early distaste for sharing that creates a domino effect of loneliness that lasts for the full of her life. Disowned by her family for her participation in her little brother’s death, her early isolation in Paris, and then as a French girl at an American school, stunts Aurelie’s social development. Aurelie adopts the moniker of Mathilde in order to shed her shame for her past, to forget how much she misses her parents, and to become more confident.

Mathilde craves love and unshared affection. She finds the perfect match in Lotto. She still struggles to be happy, however, because she feels her true self is unlovable and therefore only lets Lotto learn about the positive aspects of her. She keeps from him that she got sterilized and paid for college by being an escort and is the mastermind behind his career.

Mathilde, originally just “tall and blond and skinny” (107), adopts a cheerful fake smile and façade to blend into people’s perception of how Lotto’s wife should be. This includes Lotto himself. She is relieved when she is able to adopt a scowl and shave off her shoulder length white-blond hair to show her true feelings once Lotto passes away. Because he was the only person alive she truly cared about, once Lotto dies, Mathilde ceases to take care of herself. Yet despite her sickly appearance, she still remains attractive to men.

After Lotto’s death, Mathilde goes on a regressive rampage of promiscuity in order to shed her loneliness, and because Ariel had trained Mathilde to believe that closeness was only attained through carnal acts. In learning to be alone, Mathilde is able to achieve self-actualization through allowing herself to exist how she wants be, instead of adopting what those close to her think she should be.

Chollie is Lotto’s best friend; Lotto was the only person who ever liked Chollie for himself, as opposed to his wealth. Chollie’s described as ugly and goblin-like and having “gone bad with money, overrich like a pear ripened to ooze” (210). Illegally living in Lotto’s dorm and auditing classes, Chollie always knew his life would get its meaning through money rather than social relations. He was fine with this fact because he had one true friend in Lotto.

Chollie sets out to ruin Mathilde’s marriage when it becomes clear that she will not make Lotto as happy as she could by giving him children. Chollie attained his wealth from smartly using money he was given by his sister, Gwennie, who was given the sum as hush money for giving Lotto’s baby up for adoption and not contacting Lotto and telling him about either the pregnancy or adoption.

Sallie is Lotto’s aunt. She brings the family together and keeps them together through acts such as saving Mathilde and her nephew Lotto’s marriage from Antoinette’s meddling. She is a strong and persistent caregiver who refuses to give up on Antoinette, despite her sorrow after the death of her own brother. She also aids Mathilde after Lotto’s death.

Rachel is Lotto’s pure-hearted kid sister who grows up to be the strength in other’s tragedy. Like Lotto, she starts out as a precocious youth, able to hold her own in conversation with adults from an early age. As an adult, she’s the mother to three children and happily married to her wife, Elizabeth.

Rachel supports, cares, and protects members of her family, sometimes from themselves and sometimes from one another. She has a penchant for quirky, mismatched tattoos. While Mathilde used to pity her for looking rather mousy compared to Lotto, she comes to appreciate Rachel’s looks, as Rachel has “the same semi-dimple in the cheek [and] the [same] strong teeth” (268) as Lotto.

Antoinette is Lotto and Rachel’s once-beautiful mother who, through a combination of agoraphobia and diabetes, balloons up to over 400 pounds later in life. Her fair complexion, red hair, and voluptuous curves got her noticed by many, but they were not enough to bring her the stardom of her youthful dreams. Antoinette is typically practical, which she credits to her New England upbringing, but sometimes behaves rashly, such as her decision to move to Florida instead of going to college and starting a feud with Mathilde that ultimately keeps her from what she wants most: to see her son.

Deeply religious and protective of her children, Antoinette does not always act rationally or with decorum when it comes to interacting with Lotto’s unlikeable friends and often makes grandiose acts of intervention on his behalf, such as putting his child up for adoption and funding a building to get Lotto into his preferred school.

Leo is a talented 26-year-old composer who Lotto requests to partner with to write an opera. Raised on a remote island near Nova Scotia, his red hair and pale complexion mask his half-Native heritage. Articulate and sardonic in his everyday interactions, Leo seems to enter a trance-like state during his periods of creation. Leo learned to love music after his father challenged him to compose a soundtrack to a soccer match.

Leo and Lotto develop unspoken crushes on one another while collaborating at an artist colony. Leo’s life is his music; he can’t handle Lotto’s criticism of his newest piece and ends their partnership. Leo flees the colony; weeks later, a newspaper article states that he drowned near his home.

Gwennie is the rebellious punk girl who, as a youth, takes Lotto’s virginity. She ends up getting pregnant with his child and reaches an arrangement with Antoinette to run away and give up the kid in order to return to her old life. The isolation she faces during her pregnancy, coupled with the depression she experiences afterward, causes her to down a bunch of pills and kill herself just days after she returns to her family. A gifted student, she grew bored with school and began her drug habit and sexual rebellion at a young age.

Gawain is Lotto’s father. He is a self-made man who founded the very successful Hamlin Springs water-bottling company. He did so originally in order to support his sister, Sallie, after their parents died in a car crash. He is dedicated to his work, but also to his wife and kids. Lotto watches him die in the driveway from an aneurysm.

Mathilde’s sexual and cultural mentor, Ariel stalks her during her first visit to New York City in order to take advantage of her situation and grooms her for many years. He comes to a business agreement with Mathilde, but it is he who ends up with feelings for her during their four years together. He pays for Mathilde’s college in exchange for Friday nights and Saturday mornings of her time and full access to her body.

Heartbroken at her impromptu marriage to Lotto, Ariel happily helps Chollie with his plan to sabotage their marriage later on. As a gallery owner, Ariel struggles to remain strictly professional when Mathilde becomes his protégé after their previous relationship. Thirteen years Mathilde’s senior, he dies at 73 from pancreatic cancer, still in love with Mathilde.

Land is Lotto and Gwennie’s child who was put up for adoption by Antoinette in order to protect Lotto and his future. Land was aware of his parentage and uses his acting skills to seduce Mathilde. He steals Lotto’s original manuscript for Lotto’s play, The Springs, as a birthright memento of the father whose greatness and success he never got to enjoy. He shares Lotto’s strong back, self-assuredness and skill at sex.

Elizabeth is Rachel’s wife; she has been with Rachel off and on since they were teenagers. She is the birth mother of their twins and another child. She briefly leaves Rachel because of something bad Rachel did, but eventually she is happily married with Rachel.

The owner of Mathilde’s third home in Pennsylvania Dutch country. He, too, was made to sleep in a closet by Mathilde’s grandmother as a child. He found this motivating in becoming self-sufficient and vowed to rise Mathilde in the same manner, only providing her with essentials and an education. In remaining detached, he dined with her only once in the six years as her guardian and kept most of the doors in the house locked.

A man with lots of secrets he seemed to be part of many illicit business ventures. He wasn’t indifferent to her well-being; rather, he wanted Mathilde to be independent and successful. He dies in a botched carjacking after taking a crowbar to the head.

Mathilde’s attorney recommends the private investigator in help finding incriminating evidence on Chollie. Mathilde is impressed by her skill with disguises and the investigator admits she is a failed actress who had once taken a workshop of Lotto’s. She pursues Mathilde romantically, but ultimately leaves her unsatisfied and thus the two go back to a professional relationship.

Bette is the Scottish-raised upstairs neighbor of Lotto and Mathilde who likes to tends to the courtyard garden and helps Mathilde get an abortion and sterilized. Bette herself was sterilized with a pen knife by a woman at a stationery story in her own youth. She is one of the few people who knew the dark side of Mathilde and befriended her anyway.