Ansel Packer

Serial killer Ansel Packer is the novel’s central character. One of the two main narrative lines focuses on the last twelve hours of his life – including the contemplations of his past that surface in those last twelve hours – while the other main narrative line focuses on the lives and experiences of three women whose identities become primarily defined by their connection with Packer. Some of those connections are less direct than others, but the narrative focus in each of the sections of text focused on the women always comes back to Packer. Both these factors combine to make him the character whose existence, attitudes, and behavior are the primary driving and defining force of the novel as a whole.

On one level, there is a sense that Packer is portrayed as what might be described as a typical serial killer. He is psychopathic, narcissistic, and driven...