Dear Edward

Shay first appears in Dear Edward as the precocious neighbor to Lacey and John, Edward’s aunt and uncle. She lives with her single mother, Besa. They visit Edward together after he moves in; after learning that Shay once met his brother, Edward grows attached to her. He begins to sleep on her bedroom floor every night and learns that Shay does not make friends easily.

The relationship between Edward and Shay changes throughout the novel. Though he sleeps in her bedroom, Edward feels no physical attraction to Shay until later in his story. Shay plays a sidekick role until that point. She supports Edward in his journey by writing responses to the letters he receives and generally encouraging him to accept his trauma.

Though Edward is initially drawn to Shay because of her connection to Jordan, they develop a romantic relationship by the end of the novel. Their first kiss marks Edward’s acceptance of the tragedy in two key ways. First, it takes place at the crash site memorial, which Edward is reluctant to visit. It also shows a reversal in Edward’s hesitation to build new relationships.

Shay is efficient, organized, and driven. In that sense, she balances Edward’s stoicism and melancholy. Though she’s serious-minded, Shay doesn’t share the same regrets and fears as the passengers on Edward’s flight. By focusing on the future with optimism, she overcomes her difficulties. While the other plane passengers represent disillusionment in many forms, Shay enters Edward’s life as a force for positive change.

Shay’s relationship with her mother is one of equality and mutual respect. While Besa does have the final say in several matters, she and Shay seem to operate as friends. This independence allows Shay to support Edward more actively. Further, Shay and Besa share motivated, forward-thinking personalities. Most of the other characters are frozen by guilt and regret, while Shay and Besa show strength despite their trauma. This makes Shay a powerful ally for Edward as he learns to cope with his past.

Lacey Curtis is Edward’s aunt and becomes his guardian after the plane crash that kills his family. She is 39 when the novel begins and has recently suffered dangerous miscarriages. As the novel progresses, Lacey learns to cope with her trauma alongside Edward.

Edward’s view of Lacey and John changes significantly as he matures. Through his relationship with Lacey, he sees the rippling impact of the crash. At first, Edward is hesitant to become part of Lacey’s family; just as Lacey cannot replace his mother, he cannot replace the babies that Lacey lost in pregnancy.

Edward’s relationship with Lacey first changes when he notices that she is wearing some of his mother’s clothes. He understands that Lacey is more than a distant observer—she, too, lost her sibling in the crash. Later, when Lacey tells Edward the story about taking care of him as a baby, she communicates that their relationship has always been important to her. This conversation allays Edward’s fears that she wants to replace his family, a significant moment of acceptance for Edward.

Lacey’s relationship with her husband, John, is defined by their inability to have a child. When her pregnancies became more dangerous, John decided to stop trying to conceive for her safety. Lacey resents him for the decision, and they spend much of the novel sleeping in different bedrooms. While Edward’s arrival first puts more strain on the couple, they ultimately save their marriage by helping Edward reach out to others affected by the crash. 

Lacey is also a role model for Edward. Her decision to get a job in the maternity ward of a hospital illustrates what will become Edward’s key lesson: one can only heal by choosing to act. She faces her trauma by working with babies; though Edward does not immediately see the connection to his journey, he learns to follow in Lacey’s footsteps.

John, who is 41 when Dear Edward begins, is Edward’s uncle by marriage. After the crash, he takes Edward into his home alongside Lacey. Much like Edward, John is a quiet, stoic man. He appears at first to be unaffected by the trauma of Lacey’s miscarriages, although part of Edward’s journey involves a deeper understanding of how the adults around him, including John, hide their pain.

John is a gatekeeper for Edward. He possesses a tablet filled with information about the plane crash, but he keeps it away from Edward’s eyes. Similarly, he hides the letters and flight manifesto in his garage. Without his knowledge, Edward’s healing would be impossible. After gifting Edward with information, John finds solace. Like many of the novel’s characters, his fear and guilt prevent John from acting; he hides his pain from Lacey and Edward just as he hides the letters. After Edward opens the letters, though, John accepts that acting is a choice that requires vulnerability—a lesson learned by Edward, as well.

Bruce is Edward’s father and one of the victims of the plane crash. Throughout the hours leading up to the crash, Bruce is preoccupied with his career shortcomings and the changing behavior of his oldest son, Jordan. Like many of the other passengers, Bruce approaches the changes in his life with frustration and regret.

Bruce is a mathematician and approaches problems with logic. This increasingly causes friction with Jordan, who is constantly seeking new ways to establish his independence. Bruce also shows neurotic tendencies—he spent several years trying to work out a single math equation. He realizes just before his death that his preoccupation with the problem was based around his sons’ respect. In this way, Bruce is both defined and motivated by his family. 

Edward’s mother, Jane, is not sitting with her family when the plane crashes. Instead, she’s working on a screenplay in first class; this is despite promising her husband, Bruce, that she would have it done before the flight. Financially, Jane is the more successful of Edward’s parents, shown by her seat in first class. She’s more social than Bruce, as well, and incredibly observant. Until her thoughts shift toward regret, she spends much of her time watching and analyzing the behavior of others.

As the crash nears, Jane begins to dwell on her lack of independence, a theme shared by many of the passengers. Jane feels as if she doesn’t have control over her own time. She is uninterested in her screenplay job, which takes time away from the personal writing she’s more passionate about. Similarly, she wonders if focusing her life on building a family has cost her the kind of freedom that her seatmate, Mark, has. As with those of the other crash victims, her concerns don’t have time to manifest as actions. The fact that she is not sitting with her family at the time of her death demonstrates this dilemma; she is literally unable to move closer to her happiness.

Jordan is Edward’s older brother. He is 15 years old when he dies in the plane crash. Jordan has become rebellious in his adolescence, expressing a need for more control over his life. He is introduced while refusing to go through a body scanner in airport security, for example. In some ways, his precocious spirit matches Shay’s, who will fill a similar role in Edward’s life after Jordan dies.

Jordan’s death affects Edward more directly than that of the other passengers. Edward feels that Jordan was the only person he knew everything about, which comforted him. Shay’s brief connection with Jordan sparks Edward’s friendship to her. Edward also assumes parts of Jordan’s identity in the months and years following the crash; he wears Jordan’s clothes and decides to follow a similar diet.

Because it affects him so deeply, Jordan’s death is also Edward’s biggest hurdle. He believes that he has sole ownership over Jordan’s identity, ensuring that the outside world will not taint his memories of Jordan. Learning about Mahira challenges Edward’s belief; his trip to visit her in New York is a pivotal moment for Edward. He cannot assume his own identity if he is carrying Jordan’s. Only by learning about the secrets that existed between him and his brother can Edward start to shed Jordan’s identity.

Crispin Cox is an elderly passenger on the flight. He is accompanied by a nurse and uses a wheelchair. A sickly man, Crispin is flying to Los Angeles for cancer treatment. He’s curmudgeonly and stubborn, but he becomes more introspective during the flight. A multimillionaire, Crispin has decided to change his will at the last moment and with no idea where his fortune will go after his death.

Crispin dies before the plane crash, an important development in relation to the novel’s themes. Those who die in the crash blame their current unhappiness on the past. Crispin, who suffered abuse from his older brother, is no different. In his final hours, though, Crispin thinks of his childhood. While he does not forgive his brother, he looks back on his trauma as the fuel to his financial success. Because he is the first to reframe his past, Crispin dies in his sleep before the other passengers.

Linda is a 25-year-old woman from the Midwest who is flying to California to be with her boyfriend, Gary. They have been dating for 11 months at the time of the flight; they originally met at a wedding and engaged in a long-distance relationship. On her flight to California, Linda worries that her relationship with Gary will not last when they live together. Gary is a whale researcher with a doctorate, whereas Linda sees herself through a series of missteps and self-destructive behavior.

Early in the flight, Linda takes a pregnancy test that comes out positive. This further complicates her plans because she isn’t sure how Gary will react. Throughout the flight, Linda grows sick at the smell of food and expresses her compounding worries to Florida, who sits next to her. Like many of the passengers, Linda deals with lost potential. This is especially tragic considering the crash, which takes her life.

Her death does cause Gary to seek out Edward, and the conversation they share at Edward’s school is part of what spurs Edward into action. It is the first real glimpse Edward gets of the larger implications of the crash.

Benjamin is an injured soldier reassigned to California. Like the other passengers, Benjamin spends the duration of the flight thinking about his past and considering his future. Two weeks before an enemy troop shot him, Benjamin tussled with one of his few military friends, Gavin; Benjamin wrestled Gavin to the ground and nearly kissed him in full view of his fellow troops. He believes this resulted in a lack of focus and, subsequently, his injury.

Beyond his sexuality, Benjamin considers his life with the adoptive grandmother who raised him. At first, his hopelessness causes him to wish for death on the operating table; as time passes, however, he fantasizes about quitting the military and devoting himself to his grandmother’s wellbeing.

Benjamin shares a brief encounter with Edward on the flight, which prompts him to remember himself as a withdrawn, hardworking child. This connection pushes Edward forward later in his story. To honor Benjamin, Edward starts to lift weights. Benjamin’s insecurities undermine this perception of physical strength, though Edward knows nothing about them. Much of Dear Edward deals with the secret struggles of others, and the connection between Benjamin and Edward serves to further that theme.

Mark Lassio is a 32-year-old businessman flying to L.A. to secure a business deal. He’s a successful upper-class man, but his addiction to substances is clear: he was black-out drunk the night before the flight and takes caffeine pills throughout. Mark’s mother died of a sleeping pill overdose when he was 18, and he has a strained relationship with his carefree brother, Jax.

At first, Mark is smug and ambitious. However, his vulnerability becomes clear. A conversation with Crispin—a man who inspired him, in which Crispin showed signs of old age and memory loss—disturbs him. Further, having sex with Veronica could be crude or gratuitous, but their connection does bring out a calmer, more romantic side of Mark.

Mark’s death brings Jax into Edward’s life. It is Jax who writes the seven-million-dollar check to Edward before his own death, which he does in Mark’s memory. Jax, like Edward and Lacey, also deals with the death of a sibling. However, he immediately decides to move forward with his life and ultimately gives Edward an outlet for his healing process. 

Florida is an eccentric woman who first draws the Adler family’s eyes due to the bells she has sewn into her skirt. The bells announce her presence throughout the flight, and they match her social, vibrant personality. Florida believes that she can remember many past lives, including one as a storekeeper who sheltered Filipino revolutionaries. She acts mostly as a confidante for Linda, who tells her about the pregnancy before anyone else.

Florida is moving to California to get away from her husband, who wants to start a family. Florida struggles to settle down in her present life, which she perceives as just one of many. However, this starts to change when she fantasizes about staying in touch with Linda and Gary after the flight; she hopes to be part of their family in California.

In the context of Dear Edward, Florida represents ideas of rebirth and even resurrection. This is such a critical theme for Edward because he must learn to accept himself as a new person before he can move past the tragedy he experienced. More literally, Florida discusses becoming a tarot card reader in California; Edward later visits a tarot card reader in New York, symbolizing a rebirth, or continuation of life, for Florida.

Veronica is the first-class flight attendant on the plane. She is magnetic in beauty and personality, drawing the attention of nearly every passenger. In many ways, her job defines her. While she appreciates the unpredictability of the outside world, “She is the fullest version of herself at thirty thousand feet” (152).

Veronica spends less time dwelling on the past than other passengers, although she does recall the inappropriate way people have spoken to and looked at her in the past. During and after sex with Mark, however, she maintains her power and autonomy. She doesn’t lose her control until Crispin’s death, which precedes the crash.