We Are All the Same in the Dark

Born Montana Shirley Cox and later renaming herself Angelica Odette Dunn, Angel is the name given to a 13-year-old girl whom Wyatt Branson finds abandoned in a field of dandelions. She has a missing eye from her father’s murder of her mother, when shotgun pellets punctured her eye. At the time the narrative opens, she is on the run from her father, who is recently out of prison. After Odette helps her, she is placed in foster care, spending time in a group home before being adopted by her foster mother, Bunny. Five years after Odette’s disappearance, Angel returns to the town to find out what happened to her, picking up where Odette’s investigation left off and taking her place as the protagonist of We Are All the Same in the Dark.

Before her death, Odette gives Angel a note Odette’s father had given to her, with six words describing her: tender, resilient, strong, resourceful, kind, and empathetic. Angel strives to embody these traits both in her everyday life and in her efforts to uncover the truth about Odette’s disappearance. She resolves to find Odette and Trumanell’s killer and succeeds thanks to the same persistence that Odette herself showed. Her experiences have given her strength and courage, as well as crucial wisdom that she uses to keep herself safe. The trauma she has experienced also makes her radically caring and empathetic toward others, from the girls she befriends in the group home to the late Odette and Trumanell. She is also depicted as resourceful and tough, frequently traveling across town on foot and finding crafty ways to obtain the information she needs, persisting in her goal despite the potential dangers.

Angel’s story also highlights the more positive impacts of The Public’s Involvement in Criminal Cases. Given that a policeman was an accomplice to Trumanell’s murder, the truth might never have come to light without outside involvement by Angel. Moreover, Angel uses the public’s obsession with the case to her advantage to gain the information she needs to solve both cases.

Wyatt Branson is the brother of Trumanell Branson, who went missing 10 years before the novel opens. He and Odette were in a relationship as teenagers until the night of Trumanell’s death and Odette’s accident. Since his sister’s disappearance, Wyatt has lived as a pariah in the town, isolated in the Branson house, which he believes Trumanell haunts; he frequently talks to her and repaints the house every year on the anniversary of her disappearance.

Along with his abusive father, Frank Branson (who is also missing), Wyatt is a prime suspect in Trumanell’s disappearance—at least in the public imagination. This is due in part to a documentary that was released about Trumanell’s disappearance, inciting the public’s fascination with the case and painting Wyatt as odd, reclusive, and violent. Dr. Andrea Greco, a psychiatrist who once visited him in a mental health facility to which he had been admitted, describes him as being “fully capable of murder” (287). Even characters who largely sympathize with him, such as Odette and Angel, depict him as mysterious if not potentially threatening.

However, even before the revelations of the last few chapters, Heaberlin’s decision to begin the novel with Wyatt’s point of view allows the reader to understand his mental state; in exploring both his history of childhood abuse and his feelings toward his late sister, Haeberlin contextualizes his odd behavior and isolation as trauma responses. Indeed, Wyatt’s broader arc highlights the impact of unresolved trauma, as it becomes clear that he is burdened by the guilt of what happened at the Branson house and that trauma tethers him there in a state of “purgatory” symbolizing his inability to move on. Moreover, Reverend Tucker and Odette’s father force him to keep their secret, saying that no one would believe him if he told the truth and underscoring Wyatt’s status as a victim of public opinion.

Trumanell is the sister of Wyatt Branson. Her disappearance 10 years before the novel’s opening haunts the small Texas town where it occurred and defines it. She is described as “the town sweetheart” (24); thus, the locals were outraged when she went missing, and many took it upon themselves to look for her, inadvertently damaging crime scenes and hindering investigation efforts. A documentary about the case cemented public interest in it and ensured that the town would struggle to move on from it, spinning rumors, conspiracy theories, and sensationalism.

Likewise, the tragedy of Trumanell’s disappearance haunts many of the novel’s central characters. The novel’s early chapters from Wyatt’s point of view reveal that Trumanell was a source of comfort for him in the face of their father’s abuse. Odette’s obsession with the case drives the novel as she seeks to discover what happened to Trumanell, her efforts ultimately costing her life. Thanks to Angel, it is ultimately discovered that Trumanell was fatally shot by Odette’s uncle, Reverend Rodney Tucker, though this resolution offers only dubious closure to both Wyatt and the town itself.

Frank Branson is the father of Trumanell and Wyatt. Like Trumanell, he went missing 10 years before the novel begins, and both he and Wyatt are considered suspects in Trumanell’s disappearance.

Both Wyatt and Odette’s points of view depict Frank Branson as cruel and abusive toward his two children. Early in the novel, Wyatt recalls Frank killing their mother as well as the physical and emotional torment he inflicted on the surviving children, all of which compounds the trauma of Trumanell’s death. Frank is also central to the novel’s core mystery, as when Reverand Tucker learned that Maggie Tucker was Frank’s biological daughter, he threatened the Branson family and fatally shot Trumanell. His brother, Odette’s father, then shot Frank. Frank’s violent end solidifies his status as an example of how dark secrets and abusive behavior can fester unchecked or hide in plain sight, even in tight-knit communities.