In Megan Goldin’s Stay Awake, a fractured New York becomes a maze of memory, murder, and misdirection. The cast revolves around a woman whose mind resets with sleep, the detectives parsing truth from noise, and a killer hiding behind a spotless façade. As past betrayals surface, alliances shift and the search for truth tests trust, perception, and identity.
Main Characters
Liv Reese
Liv Reese anchors the novel as its unreliable narrator and beating heart: a woman whose memory erases every time she sleeps, forcing her to survive on scrawled reminders like “STAY AWAKE.” Waking into a nightmare—blood on her hands, a city on alert, and a dead ex-fiancé—she scrambles to reconstruct two lost years and prove she isn’t a killer. Haunted by the murders of her best friend Amy Decker and boyfriend Marco Reggio, she stumbles through the present while piecing together betrayals from the past. Pursued by detectives and hunted by the man who engineered her terror, she evolves from a disoriented fugitive into a fierce investigator of her own life, embodying the novel’s meditation on Memory and Identity.
Detective Darcy Halliday
Detective Darcy Halliday is the story’s clear-eyed counterpoint to Liv’s disorientation—a meticulous homicide detective on temporary transfer who is assigned to Ted Cole’s murder. Initially facing an overwhelming case against Liv, she resists the easy narrative, noticing inconsistencies that suggest a larger conspiracy. Her wary professionalism gradually becomes empathy as she sees the human cost of Liv’s condition, which in turn sharpens her determination to protect a victim, not just collar a suspect. In challenging her seasoned partner Jack Lavelle and following the evidence to Brett Graham, she earns respect, a permanent place on the team, and a reputation for cutting through confirmation bias to find the truth.
Detective Jack Lavelle
Detective Jack Lavelle begins as the unit’s world-weary pragmatist, a veteran investigator convinced by the trail of evidence that Liv is their killer. His instincts are honed but cautious, making him the voice of skepticism and a foil to Halliday’s methodical open-mindedness. Forced into partnership, he clashes with Halliday until her persistence—and the case’s troubling gaps—push him to reconsider the obvious. His arc tracks a quiet yet crucial shift: from lone-wolf certainty to a collaborative pursuit of justice that ultimately helps rescue Liv and expose the real murderer.
Brett Graham
Brett Graham operates in the shadows as the novel’s hidden antagonist, outwardly a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon and devoted boyfriend to Amy Decker, inwardly a calculating narcissist. He curates a spotless public image while manipulating those around him, orchestrating a campaign of stalking, framing, and murder that leaves Liv isolated and discredited. His obsession and grandiosity fuel crimes both past and present, including the killing of Amy and Marco and the silencing of threats to his reputation. Rather than changing, Brett is revealed—peeling back layers of charm to expose the story’s central engine of Trust and Betrayal.
Ted Cole
Ted Cole is the story’s tragic catalyst: Liv’s ex-fiancé whose murder kicks off the present-day investigation and draws her back into danger. Though engaged to Elisabeth, Ted still cares deeply for Liv, trying to protect her when he realizes her memory has relapsed and she’s being hunted. Seen mostly through others’ accounts and flashbacks, he emerges as a conflicted but decent man whose loyalty places him in the crosshairs. His death forces buried secrets into the open and sets the investigative and emotional stakes for everyone involved.
Supporting Characters
Amy Decker
Amy Decker is Liv’s once-idolized best friend and roommate, whose murder two years earlier coincides with the onset of Liv’s amnesia. Charismatic and magnetic yet secretly unfaithful, Amy’s affair with Marco fractures the friendship and provides the emotional tinder for Brett’s lethal jealousy. She lives on as a contested memory—saint, betrayer, and the ghost that keeps pulling the present back to the past.
Marco Reggio
Marco Reggio is Liv’s boyfriend at the time of his murder, remembered as ambitious and charming but ultimately disloyal. His affair with Amy devastates Liv and entwines him in Brett’s violent spiral, making him both victim and catalyst. As the truth of his infidelity emerges, Liv must sift grief from illusion to understand what was taken from her—and what was never really hers.
Minor Characters
- Detective Jerry Krause: Lead on the original Decker–Reggio case, he fixates on Liv as the culprit and disregards evidence of a stalker, setting a damaging investigative precedent.
- Detective Larry Regan: Krause’s former partner who quietly doubts Liv’s guilt and preserves overlooked leads that later guide Halliday and Lavelle toward the real killer.
- Joe Chalmers: A petty criminal hired by Brett to stalk Liv, his account exposes Brett’s premeditation and the long game behind Liv’s terror.
- Elisabeth: Ted’s fiancée, whose jealous engagement-party invite draws Liv back to New York and inadvertently triggers the final chain of events.
- Harry: The bartender at Nocturnal, a steady, compassionate presence who recognizes Liv from night to night and treats her with kindness when she can’t remember him.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
The novel’s core tension pivots on the collision between Liv’s erased past and the detectives’ hunt for a present-day killer. Liv stands at the nexus of grief and suspicion: she mourns Amy and Marco while being pursued for Ted’s murder, and her condition makes her both an easy scapegoat and a heartbreaking witness to her own life. Across the investigation, Darcy Halliday’s disciplined empathy counterbalances Jack Lavelle’s skepticism, turning their initial friction into a productive alliance that ultimately protects Liv and exposes Brett.
Two intertwined webs drive the plot. First is the “murder triangle” from two years prior: Amy’s relationship with Brett and her secret affair with Marco ignite Brett’s jealous rage, resulting in both their deaths and the psychological wreckage of Liv’s memory. Second is the investigative present: Ted’s effort to shield Liv draws lethal attention, while Halliday and Lavelle sift planted evidence from genuine clues, gradually tracing the pattern of manipulation back to Brett.
Factions emerge as the truth comes into focus. Brett stands alone—calculating, isolating Liv, and eliminating threats—while Liv, Halliday, and eventually Lavelle form a reluctant coalition committed to truth over convenience. Peripheral figures like Jerry Krause and Larry Regan symbolically split along the same fault line: confirmation bias versus careful reconsideration. Through these shifting alliances, the story argues that trust must be earned, memory can mislead, and justice depends on the courage to question what seems most obvious.