CHARACTER
Ordinary Graceby William Kent Krueger

Lise Brandt

Lise Brandt

Quick Facts

Lise Brandt is the deaf younger sister of Emil Brandt and aunt to Karl Brandt. She lives with Emil on a renovated farmhouse, tending vast gardens and acting as his caretaker after World War II leaves him blind and scarred. First seen working the land when Frank visits the Brandt farm, Lise communicates through signs and gestures and keeps to herself.

Who They Are

Lise is a guardian turned recluse: a deaf woman whose world narrows to her brother, her hands, and the soil. Her life revolves around the rhythms of caretaking and cultivation, where she finds order in the garden that she cannot find in speech or society. The same focused intensity that makes her a tender caretaker also hardens into ferocious protectiveness—especially when she senses the threat of being replaced. The novel slowly reveals that the woman many see as “touched” is also Ariel’s killer, driven not by malice but by panic and a childlike terror of abandonment. As a figure, Lise channels the novel’s meditation on isolation and the cost of love curdled by fear, shading the story’s portrait of Death and Grief with tragic complexity.

Personality & Traits

Lise’s character lives at the intersection of silence, strength, and volatility. Her deafness estranges her from a town that already sees her as other, while her fierce loyalty to Emil becomes the spine of her identity. When the fragile order of her life is threatened, her aversion to touch and her repressed rage explode with startling force.

  • Isolated and reclusive: She rarely leaves the farm, existing in a closed world of Emil and the garden. Even her frantic visit to the Drum home during Emil’s suicide attempt underscores how exceptional such contact is.
  • Non-verbal communicator: Trained to speak but “reluctant to mouth” sounds, she prefers signs and gestures; with Emil and Jake, that silence becomes fluency, a mutual language others can’t access.
  • Touch-averse, prone to rage: A stranger’s hand can flip her into violence; when Frank innocently claps her shoulder, she pivots to attack with a crowbar—an eruption that is frightening because it is so reflexive.
  • Fiercely protective: Her purpose is Emil. She structures every choice around shielding him, and the thought of losing her place in his life provokes the panic that ultimately leads to tragedy.
  • Physically powerful: Frank notices her “muscled” arms and thick veins from constant labor—a detail that foreshadows the physical capacity behind the crowbar’s fatal force.
  • Childlike simplicity: Her wants are primal and clear—keep Emil, keep the world predictable. After the final confrontation, her repeated “Sorry. I’m sorry.” exposes a limited but real moral awareness.

Character Journey

Lise begins as an enigma—a silent, hardworking woman radiating both gentleness and danger. Early scenes pair her restorative power in the garden with sudden, disproportionate fury when boundaries are crossed, quietly seeding the possibility of violence. As Frank’s investigation tightens, the signs align: her aversion to touch, the crowbar in her hands, the tokens hidden in her shed. In the climax, she attacks Frank, then freezes at the sight of Jake, the only person besides Emil who can reach her. Her collapse into apology reveals a flicker of remorse but not the tools to live with what she’s done. The community’s response—removing her to an institution—arrests any further growth, leaving her arc as a revelation rather than a redemption: a tragic unveiling of a woman whom love has both anchored and destroyed.

Key Relationships

  • Emil Brandt: Emil is her axis—she is his eyes and guardian, and he gives shape to her days. Their bond is mutual but asymmetrical: he seeks dignity and privacy, she seeks possession through care. The thought of Ariel—and a baby—reshaping Emil’s loyalties sparks Lise’s fatal fear.
  • Jake Drum: Jake meets her where she lives—quietly, without forcing speech or touch. His presence can halt her fury mid-swing, proof that trust, once earned, has a regulating power no one else can summon.
  • Ariel Drum: Lise reads Ariel’s love and pregnancy as an existential eviction notice. In Lise’s mind, Ariel is not a person but a force that will unseat her in Emil’s life, crystallizing the novel’s tension around Family Secrets and Bonds.
  • Frank Drum: Frank is the observer who becomes the catalyst. Twice the target of her rage, he also pieces together the truth from the watch and barrette in her shed—transforming Lise from village mystery into the story’s hidden center.

Defining Moments

Small scenes accrete into a pattern—each one tightening the coil of fear and protection until it snaps.

  • Emil’s suicide attempt: Lise’s desperate dash to the Drum house shows both her dependence and her isolation; without words, she still makes the urgency unmistakable. It humanizes her before the later revelations.
  • The crowbar swing at Frank: Triggered by an innocent touch, the sudden attack reveals how violation and panic are wired together for Lise. It foreshadows the murder weapon and her capacity to act on fear.
  • Discovery in the shed: Frank finds Ariel’s watch and barrette among Lise’s tools—physical proof that relocates the novel’s moral center onto the overlooked woman at the edge of town.
  • Final confrontation with Jake present: Lise attacks Frank but halts when she faces Jake. That pause—followed by her collapse and apology—proves she is not monstrous but tragically limited, capable of affection yet incapable of managing terror.

Essential Quotes

Though deaf, Lise had been trained to speak but was greatly reluctant to mouth the utterances that sounded odd and flat to the rest of us.
This line captures the social cost of her deafness: she can produce sound, but won’t, because it alienates her further. The choice to remain silent is not inability but self-protection, pushing her deeper into solitude and gestural intimacy with the few who understand her.

The moment I touched her she swung around with the crowbar in her hand. If I hadn’t been so quick and leaped back out of reach, that iron bar would have crushed my skull. The sun in its setting had gone red and a long beam shot through a break in the branches of an elm and lit her face with a demon light.
The physical danger is immediate, but the image does more: the “demon light” reflects Frank’s terror and the community’s tendency to mythologize Lise as otherworldly. The crowbar becomes an extension of fearful instinct—what happens when boundaries are crossed in a life defined by defense.

She collapsed onto her knees facing Jake and she clasped her hands as if in prayer and droned, “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Her apology is plain and repetitive, mirroring her limited emotional vocabulary yet revealing real remorse. The posture—knees, clasped hands—casts the moment as confession without absolution, distilling Lise’s tragedy: she can feel guilt, but she cannot undo the harm that fear has wrought.