Who is Samson "Fish" Lamb from Cloudstreet and what is their importance?

Samson "Fish" Lamb is the second son of the Lamb family. When we first meet Samson, he is the unnamed character who runs to the river and looks ready to dive or fall into it. At the novel's's end, it is made clear that Fish is, in fact, that person, as he falls into the river and drowns. Fish's fishing accident occurs early in the novel and results in apparent brain damage. He is left with the mind of a small child, even as he matures into a young man. Physically, he transforms from a beautiful boy into a large, sloppy man. He does, however, retain his joyful nature. Sadly, Samson is also subject to fits of fear, rage, and loss of control of his bodily functions.

Fish is treated well by everyone in the Lamb family after the accident, and is briefly beloved from afar as a boy by young Rose Pickles, but his emotional life in the novel is understandably less developed than that of other main characters. At the end, his death is clearly a release from this world for him, and a relief for the others, however unwanted it is by them.