Who is Lorraine from The Silver Kiss and what is their importance?

Lorraine is Zoe Sutcliff's best friend at school, and we discover has been Zoe's friend since childhood. Through the course of the novel Lorraine discovers that she has to move to Oregon with her father and her stepmother and is unable to stay in Oakwood with her natural birth mother, Dian.

Lorraine is presented as a sassy, somewhat arrogant, and straightforward young girl who is very much concerned with boys, fashion and having a laugh with her friends at the start of the book. Lorraine's character undergoes little character development save that she becomes a little more emotionally open to her friend as she comes to herself realise all that she is about to lose in her move.

The character of Lorraine is characterised by her melodrama and her high passion, and in this way acts as a plot device to represent all the vital energy and passion that is missing from the main protagonists of the novel. She has outward, volatile emotions which result in Zoe and her breaking their friendship for a very short period, but can be contrasted to the way that Zoe and the Sutcliff family seem to keep all of their emotions inside and rarely show them even to each other.

However, Lorraine is at first portrayed as somewhat selfish as she is concerned with her own move over her friend's situation. This however mollifies towards the end of the book as we see how Lorraine has cared about her friend all along, but felt awkward about talking about the ill health of Zoe's mother. Lorraine's character development relies upon her coming to the stage where she is able to show that she is listening to her friend and understands her problems rather than focussing on her own.

Understanding that we are supposed to use Lorraine's character to compare with Zoe's, we are left at the end of the book realising that Zoe has developed more as a character than Lorraine has, and is probably more mature than her friend is, and able to deal with heavier emotional issues.