51 pages • 1 hour read
Jamie McGuireBeautiful Disaster
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Abigail Abernathy
Abigail Abernathy is the protagonist and first-person point-of-view character throughout the novel. She is 18 when the story opens and a first-year student at Eastern University. She has long caramel-colored hair and gray eyes. Travis calls her Pigeon, which can mean “a dove, an attractive girl, a winning card in poker” (105).
Abby’s mother has an alcohol addiction and her father, Mick Abernathy, is a famous poker player. Mick taught Abby how to play poker and encouraged her to drink at a young age. Mick created a legend that, at midnight the day Abby turned 13, his luck ended and hers began, thus gaining her the nickname “Lucky Thirteen.” People from her childhood, which was spent in Vegas casinos associating with gamblers and mobsters, also called her Cookie. She was good friends with Jesse, the son of a casino owner.
Abby’s mother lives in Wichita, where Abby met her best friend, America. Abby feels closer to America’s parents than her own. Abby chose to attend Eastern because she wanted to escape Wichita, her reputation as “Lucky Thirteen,” and Mick’s increasing debts, which he often calls upon Abby to help him pay. At Eastern, Abby decides to cultivate a new image as a girl who wears cashmere cardigans and pearls. The crux of her internal conflict in the novel is her wish to escape Mick’s influence on her life and be seen as herself, not just Mick’s daughter. However, like most young adults, Abby is still figuring out who she herself is. She has a much clearer idea of who she doesn’t want to be than who she does want to be. Her initial attraction to Travis worries her because he reminds her of Mick, particularly in the way he uses her as a talisman or as another addiction. She tries to date Parker because she tells herself he is the kind of guy who would be good for her, the opposite of her father in every way.
Abby displays a judgmental attitude toward the women with whom Travis sleeps or flirts. She denigrates their sexual choices and calls the sorority girls who accompany him to lunch one day “Barbie twins” (10). This judgmental reaction is partly jealousy since Abby is sexually attracted to Travis, but it also demonstrates a desire to define for herself who she wants to be by defining the behavior and perception she doesn’t want. Abby’s inability to relate to most other young women her age also reflects her desire to be unique, special, and individual.
Abby’s only female friend is America, who knows about Abby’s upbringing and feels protective and understanding of her. While she relies on her friendship with America for emotional support when she is apart from Travis, Abby proves able to forget about America and the rest of the world when she is with Travis. Though she initially thinks that she is too young for commitment and recognizes the behaviors Travis demonstrates that could prove risky in a relationship—including his aggressive tendencies and his drinking—Abby dismisses these concerns when she decides that her feelings for Travis are strong enough to merit a lifelong commitment. She believes in her ability to soothe his temper and, since he insists that he needs her, her certainty that she is what Travis needs allays her other concerns.
Travis Maddox
Travis Maddox, also known as “Mad Dog,” is a sophomore at Eastern University. He is Abby’s love interest and a protagonist in the novel. Travis grew up near the college, famous for his skill in the local underground fight club. Travis is lean and muscular with brown eyes and short brown hair. Abby notices his devil-may-care attitude at the first fight she attends where he “strolled into the center of the circle as if he were showing up to another day at work” (3).
Travis is very fit but doesn’t work out or train for his fights. He tells Abby he learned how to fight growing up with four brothers and a dad who had a bad temper when he drank, suggesting Travis was often hit during his childhood. He holds As in all his classes without having to work very hard for his scores and uses scholarships to pay for some of his schooling, covering the rest with income from his fights. He gained his nickname because of the ferocity with which he fights.
Everyone on the Eastern campus seems to know Travis; the guys admire him, and girls are always trying to get his attention. He’s famous for not staying with a woman any longer than one night. Shepley describes Travis as “his own universe” (66), and tells Abby that “Travis is impulsive and goes balls to the wall on everything” (246). Abby sees this intensity firsthand when she becomes involved with Travis. He’s jealous of other men she talks to and attacks men who approach Abby. Travis smokes and enjoys reckless behavior, including driving his motorcycle over the speed limit. His ability to keep his cool vanishes when he is drinking, often resulting in aggressive or promiscuous behavior.
The novel casts Travis’s violent tendencies in an admirable light—a sign of his passionate nature—and his bursts of aggression are generally tolerated or avoided by the people around him. In this way, the novel causes the reader to question the nature of violence and consequences, and the lines between love, protection, and abuse. There are several instances in the novel when Travis assaults another person in a public place, the school cafeteria for example, and leaves them “in a bloody heap” (275). This is never seen as a problem or a crime, and no one comments on this beyond saying that the person deserved it for making Travis angry. His violence is justified by his past trauma or his current passion, inevitably prompting the reader to question those lines.
His father feels that the death of his mother made Travis afraid to love, and he asks Abby to be careful of his son’s fragile emotions. Travis, however, is generally unsolicitous of the feelings of people around him, except for Abby. His devotion to Abby is instant, intense, and could be viewed as obsessive. He insists that he needs her and belongs to her. Abby’s roommate Kara observes that this kind of dependency is an unhealthy relationship dynamic, and even Abby notices at certain points that Travis treats her as a possession and not as a person. Ultimately, Abby chooses to believe that Travis’s obsession for her is a sign of deep passion.
America Mason
America Mason is Abby’s friend from Kansas. Since the focus of the story centers Travis and Abby’s love story, America’s role as a secondary character affords her limited depth or interiority outside of supporting and enabling Abby’s tumultuous relationship with Travis. Abby and America have been best friends since their junior year of high school, and America chose to attend Eastern University because Abby chose it. America met Shepley at first-year student orientation and began dating him.
America is Abby’s “self-proclaimed conscience” (188), there to keep her on track. She knows the details of Abby’s relationship with her parents, especially Mick, and understands why Abby is trying to distance herself from Mick’s addictive behaviors. America recognizes when Abby is lying to herself or others, but she is unconditionally supportive, taking Abby’s side in all things. She guesses early on that Abby is attracted to Travis and roots for them to get together, but she also enables Abby when she tries to avoid or escape Travis by lying to him. When Travis brings a girl to his apartment while he and Abby are separated, America gets angry at Shepley for defending Travis’s behavior and breaks up with him to show her support for Abby. America makes up with Shepley and is supportive when Travis and Abby get back together, though she suggests at the end she is hurt that Abby flew to Vegas and got married without even telling her best friend, much less inviting her to be part of the wedding.
Parker Hayes
Parker Hayes is a supporting character who serves as a foil to Travis in competing for Abby. Parker is Shepley and Travis’s brother in the Sigma Tau fraternity. He has a model smile, blonde hair, and tan skin. Parker is a premed student and hopes to go to Harvard, which his dad attended. A good student with top test scores, Parker is wealthy and buys Abby an expensive diamond bracelet for her birthday even though they have only been on a few dates. Parker’s mother is controlling and interrogates Abby while they are on a date at the restaurant his parents own. Abby also suspects that Parker’s mother has decorated his apartment when Parker moves out on his own.
Parker is the opposite of Travis and, on paper, the kind of idealized guy that Abby thinks she should try to be with—financially stable and emotionally reliable. Her attraction to Parker is not deep, however, and Abby appears unconcerned when she sees Parker with a date at one of the fraternity parties. She is more upset when Parker tells her that he has occasionally consoled a girl that Travis dumped by making sure she got home safely. Parker describes his presumably chivalrous behavior to show Abby that he is more reliable and dependable than Travis and thus the wiser choice.
Shepley Maddox
Shepley Maddox is Travis’s younger cousin, fraternity brother, and roommate. Shepley grew up around the Maddox brothers but did not participate in their fights. He functions as a secondary, supporting character and a foil to Travis as an example of boyfriend material. Shepley is concerned about other people’s feelings and welfare, as demonstrated by his concern when Abby drinks excessively at her birthday party. He demonstrates care and affection for America but does not go into violent rages when she tries to break up with him.
Shepley worries about Abby and Travis initially because he understands Travis’s tendencies to be impulsive, reckless, and excessive in his emotions, and he worries that if Travis hurts Abby, America will take Abby’s side and distance herself from Shepley, which is exactly what happens. Shepley’s job and income are not discussed, but he exhibits a sense of responsibility. He does not, however, offer any sense of correction or perspective to Travis, perhaps because he fears his temper or because, like the rest of his family, he feels that the emotional damage of losing his mother at an early age excuses Travis’s behavior. While Shepley occasionally tries to act as the peacemaker or voice of reason, he tends to get drowned out by the emotions of the people around him.
