The Color of Night - Madison Smartt BellMae: a lone wolf, who got raped by her brother as early as 11. Her relationship with her mom and parents in general is non-existent. She seems to scorn her mother. She is in a sort of gang: the people, the One; they steal, they kill and do piggedly-diddedly, while on drugs. She is obsessed with 9/11 and seems to want to understand the destruction. She nearly escapes with her life several times (for example she avoids the raid that takes in the One). Her purpose is to tell her story.
Terrell: Mae's sadistic brother who uses Indian lore to torment his sister and rape her. He impregnates Mary Alice in high school, marries her, has two kids and goes off to the army. He comes back with honors, but eventually, he ends up being shot by the SWAT. he has already killed his whole family by that time.
Laurel: She is Mae's lover, though she drifts off with other people such as D, Ned, O... She is Mae's accomplice. In the end, she has a job as a secretary but she is dying of ovarian cancer; maybe due to her past life.
O: seems to a modern day Orpheus and his Eurydice is Eerie. He is always writing songs for her, and after her death he doesn't stop, which leads to his death by Mae and Laurel. He is beautiful, and he has a stint with Laurel in Malibu which leads to her having a child.
Ariadne: O and Laurel's daughter. She is in her 30s by the end of the book, and is very pretty.
Eerie: she is O's girlfriend and he seems serious about her; he is upset when she sleeps with someone else, and when she dies in a not so innocent accident in a motel, he is crushed. She is of an unimaginable beauty, unapproachable.
D: The boss of the operation, who enjoys debasing others, making them sleep with anyone (such as Ned), making them kill people. His eyes capture Mae, but she knows she and everyone in the group is just a pawn in his twisted scheme. He ends up being arrested.
Mary Alice: Naive schoolgirl who ends up being Terrel's wife. He kills her and the two kids after he goes crazy.
Mother Thing: only seems to be referred to by Mae as a woman who doesn't care much of anything, smokes and doesn't do much; she makes Mae feel dirty as if everything were her fault.
Constant references to Greek mythology; Mae always refers to other people as mortals. She brings up the myths of Persephone, Acteon, Selene.....
The serial killer and terrorist roles merged with each other. Before 9/11, the serial killer was predominant in American culture, but the creation of the terrorist allowed America to see itself as a victim only--> America and the Other. The serial killer, as demonstrated by rise of movie genre franchise, offers a perverse comfort for people to avoid thinking about implications of terrorism. Freud suggested the popularity of serial killer movies is a coping method for people to deal with their own death via fiction. 9/11 was first considered an act of terrorism and then an act of war. It justifies the offensive on terrorism and the countries being attacked as a result. By using the term of terrorism and making it a product of a diseased mind, it allows America to ignore that terrorism may be provoked by some sort of legitimate reason to the Arab world. The DC sniper case made confusion between serial killer and terrorist even bigger. Led to creation of term "domestic terrorism". Baton rouge murder cases show mentality regarding the two terms, how it's ritualistic and falls back into pre-determined categories in people's minds. Despite shift in culture after 9/11 of serial killer as being a tribute of Americana it led the people to think that other culture is embodied by violence, per Zizek's statement of "the other being a distilled version of our own essence". The last statement in the article summarizes the whole issue: "Serial Killers are Us but only in a way that reinforces the Gap between Us and Them."
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