Analysis Of Characters And Plot: Backroads By Tawni ODell

Danielle Barnes

Backroads

SUMMARY OF MAJOR EVENTS

Backroads begins with Harley being questioned by the police for a crime that the reader knows not of. He delves into the story that has brought him up to this point, beginning from a year after his mother shot his father. The events in the course of this are breath taking.

Harley is nineteen and the legal guardian of his three younger sisters: Amber (sixteen), Misty (twelve), and Jody (six). His conflicts range from having to raise these three girls while working two jobs, trying to be like “other guys,” mentally sorting out all the complications that come with having a mother who murdered an abusive father, and coming to grips with his tortured and confusing past. As Harley continues to roughly go through his therapy sessions, the deeper truths about his abusive upbringing reveal themselves, including the reasons for Amber’s strange behavior about Harley secretly dating Callie Mercer (explanation will come later), and her promiscuous sex life. I think the major conflict would have to be Harley facing who he is and what his family is.

Throughout the entire story up until the near end, Harley is led to believe that his mother is the one who killed their father. Actually, all of the children and the media and everyone else who knows about the murder accuse their mother of the crime because she turns herself in for it. Harley is torn between feeling like his father deserved it and feeling as though his mother had just given up. As the plot progresses, however, it is more apparent that something is missing. Their mother was planning on leaving their father; she had money stashed away to do so, but when Misty found out, she stole the money so that their mother couldn’t leave. There are hints of a strange relationship between Misty and their father. When Harley finally gets up the strength to ask his mother about the suspicions he has, she tells him that Misty was the one who killed their father, but it was a missed shot. She had been aiming for their mother instead, trying to get rid of her as if she was the other woman. Harley internally realizes though that Misty was simply revenging her anger for never taking care of any of the children, for never leaving when she should have, for not loving them enough.

The ultimate climax, however, is at the end.