The Last One at the Wedding

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses violence and death.

“Our first conversation in three years, and it hadn’t even lasted a minute.”

Both Frank and his daughter Maggie are initially introduced through the conflict of their fractured relationship. Here, Frank becomes frantic because his first conversation with his daughter in years is cut short by shoddy cell reception. The distress he feels at the result of this failed call provides characterization because it reveals how much his daughter means to him and how desperately he wants to reconnect with her.

“Jesus, Maggie. You didn’t tell me Aidan was—I stopped short at using the word ‘rich.’”

Class is one of this novel’s key focal points, and both Frank and Aidan are characterized by their class positions early in the novel. Because Aidan is an intermittently employed artist, Frank is initially sure that Maggie’s fiancé struggles financially. He is shocked and a little uncomfortable when he discovers that Aidan is wealthy, and his discomfort is reflected in the dashed sentence and his inability to voice a word meaning “rich.” He wants the best for his daughter, but Frank has deeply rooted working-class values and is suspicious of affluence.

“I had a hard time getting a read on him. He was polite but very quiet. I’m not sure I met the real Aidan.”

Frank initially finds Aidan too reticent for his liking, and he is not sure if Maggie’s fiancé is hiding the true nature of his personality or if he just does not have much interest in Frank.