The Drowning Woman

The novel’s secondary protagonist, Hazel is one of the point-of-view characters. Despite their divergent economic circumstances, Hazel and Lee are remarkably similar and quickly become friends. Both feel trapped in their situations: Lee in poverty and Hazel in an abusive marriage. Hazel acknowledges that she traded on her beauty for much of her life and sought a rich husband. Lee describes Hazel as having an “effortless elegance, a sense of refinement” and finds her captivating (28). Hazel is a talented baker and finds some solace in baking the goods she brings to Lee on the beach. Her personal ambition is to open a bakery.

Hazel describes herself as sexually curious and suggests that this was why the rumors of Benjamin’s interest in kink didn’t immediately repel her. Over time, she became very passive as a result of Benjamin’s physical and emotional abuse. For almost a decade, she was unable to make her own decisions, and she has difficulty reclaiming her agency even when Benjamin is in jail. Like her relationship with her husband, Hazel’s relationship with Jesse involves attempting to please him even when doing so is contrary to her needs. As Lee observes, Hazel “is so weak and damaged from her husband’s obvious cruelty; it’s no wonder she fell under Jesse’s spell” (209). Like Lee, one of Hazel’s character arcs is her shift from passivity to action. She eventually distances herself from Jesse’s plan to incriminate Lee, throwing Lee’s knife into the ocean instead of stashing it, as agreed, in her laundry room. Later, she attacks Benjamin with her keys in the hotel parking lot to escape him and eventually flees to Panama.

Hazel experiences thoughts of death by suicide and plans to carry them out at several points throughout the novel. She’s portrayed as depressed and certain that she has no other options to seek freedom. Lee describes her friend as a “tragic heroine caught between beauty and ugliness. Between privilege and abuse” (104). In addition to her circumstances, Hazel’s affection for and devotion to her mother characterize her. Her mother raised her alone, and both she and Hazel were prone to living beyond their means. After her mother developed early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, Hazel had to put her into substandard state care, which was all she could afford. One of Hazel’s motivations for being with and then staying with Benjamin was the promise of a better life for her mother at a well-appointed private treatment facility. Hazel clearly loves her mother deeply and is distraught when she disappears.

Though Jesse initially appears as a romantic interest for Lee, the novel gradually reveals that he is an antagonist. The first revelation is his involvement with Hazel and their plans to kill Benjamin and escape together, but the larger revelation is that Benjamin actually hired him to murder Hazel. His brother, Sean, describes Carter as sociopathic and enjoying violence. Whereas Sean feels that he fell into a life of crime, he insists that his brother chose it. Sean also comments on how his brother always dated multiple women and was adept at making them fall in love with him. He’s highly sexual, and while he initially feigns tenderness, he becomes more sexually aggressive with both Hazel and Lee over the course of their relationships. He’s fit and works as a personal trainer during the events of the novel. While he was in jail, he devoted much time to exercising and weightlifting.

Jesse lives in a small, run-down apartment yet drives an expensive Audi. While he explains that he has the nice car to impress his wealthy personal training clients, Lee is suspicious, and the novel ultimately reveals that his circumstances indicate his criminal history and involvement with Benjamin. Hazel notes that she “knew Jesse was not simply a personal trainer. He had a past he wouldn’t talk about. Tattoos on his body that looked suspiciously unprofessional” (140). Nevertheless, she’s surprised when he suggests killing Benjamin and shocked when she learns that Benjamin had actually hired him to kill her.