Drew Stapleton Character Analysis

Quick Facts

Role: The deceased youngest brother whose absence drives the plot; a catalyst for family reckoning and truth-telling
First appearance: Only through memory and photographs (a premiere shot with his arm around his brother, and a family portrait before the accident)
Distinguishing details: A family resemblance to his brothers and a cowlick that made a sprig of hair stick up in the back
Death: Car accident two years before the novel begins; the hidden truth about that night shapes the family’s grief
Key relationships: Closest to his brother Jack Stapleton; complicated legacy with Hank Stapleton; beloved son of Connie Stapleton and their father
Core themes: His story anchors Grief, Family, and Healing

Who They Are

Though Drew Stapleton never walks onto the page in the novel’s present, he is the book’s emotional center—an absent presence whose life and death pull every thread of the plot taut. He is remembered as kind, bright, and grounding—especially for Jack. Yet his secret relapse into alcoholism and the shame that followed expose how love can be warped by silence. Drew becomes the lens through which the book interrogates how families mythologize the dead, and how telling the whole truth—however painful—can transform grief into something healing rather than corrosive.

Personality & Traits

Drew’s remembered warmth sits alongside hidden struggles. The tension between how he was loved and what he concealed is the key to understanding the family’s fracture.

Intelligent and driven: Considered one of the “smart ones,” he attended veterinary school and intended to join his father’s practice—evidence of steadiness and service rooted in family.
Supportive “buffer”: Jack calls him his family “buffer zone,” the brother who saw Jack’s worth beyond academics, suggesting Drew’s gift for soothing conflict and recognizing strengths others missed.
Secretive about pain: After sobriety, he relapsed and hid it. The secrecy itself—more than the relapse—becomes the tragic engine, because it turns love into silence and silence into shame.
Image-protective to the end: His last plea to Jack was to keep the relapse from their parents and brother—choosing protection over transparency even at the cost of truth and, ultimately, the family’s ability to heal.

“Don’t tell Mom and Dad. Don’t tell Hank.”

Character Journey

Drew’s “arc” is really the family’s evolving picture of him. At first, he exists as an idealized victim—beloved, blameless, and lost too soon—which concentrates the family’s pain into anger at Jack. The turning point arrives when Jack reveals that Drew, not Jack, was driving that night—and that he was drunk. This revelation doesn’t diminish Drew; it humanizes him. He shifts from martyr to complicated son and brother, someone loving and fallible who made a terrible choice. In recognizing Drew fully—his gentleness, brilliance, and shame—the family can finally confront their grief honestly. Jack’s final dream of Drew on the bridge reframes memory from punishment into farewell, beginning the long work of forgiveness.

Key Relationships

Jack Stapleton Drew is Jack’s confidant, champion, and ballast. Jack honors Drew’s dying wish by hiding the truth, a loyalty that simultaneously protects Drew’s image and destroys Jack’s standing with his family. Jack’s habit of wearing Drew’s leather necklace turns memory into a burden—until telling the truth transforms it into a tribute.

Hank Stapleton Hank’s love for Drew hardens into fury at Jack, a way to channel grief into certainty. The revelation that Drew was driving doesn’t erase Hank’s pain, but it relocates it—from a simple story of Jack’s recklessness to a complex tragedy of Drew’s struggle and secrecy—creating the possibility of reconciliation between the surviving brothers.

Connie Stapleton and their father As parents, their devastation is profound, and the lie meant to shield them only deepens their isolation. When the truth surfaces, it wounds—but also reconnects them to the real son they lost, not the imagined version shaped by silence.

Defining Moments

Even in absence, several moments define Drew’s presence and meaning in the story.

The car accident that precedes the novel
- What happens: The car breaks through a bridge railing and plunges into a river; Drew dies.
- Why it matters: This is the family’s originating trauma and the seed of their estrangement, freezing everyone in a simplified narrative that blames Jack.
Jack’s revelation
- What happens: In a climactic confrontation, Jack finally admits Drew was driving—and drunk—that night.
- Why it matters: It shatters the myth of a blameless loss and replaces it with a truthful, complicated love. It also reorients the story from accusation to accountability and compassion.
Jack’s recurring nightmare, shared with Hannah
- What happens: Jack relives the crash in graphic, guilty detail with Hannah Brooks, baring the private torment he’s carried.
- Why it matters: Speaking the nightmare breaks the secrecy that kept grief static; it primes the confession that will heal the family.
The final dream on the bridge
- What happens: After the truth is told, Jack dreams of Drew and is able to apologize, say goodbye, and feel peace.
- Why it matters: The dream reframes memory from punishment into closure—an inner marker that real healing has begun.
The unfinished boat
- What happens: Drew leaves behind a boat he was building; after the reveal, the family can finally tend to it.
- Why it matters: The boat symbolizes Drew’s unfinished life and the family’s stalled grief. Completing it together converts mourning into making—an act of love aligned with Appearance vs. Reality, as the family moves from a comforting fiction to an honest remembrance.

Essential Quotes

“He was kind of my buffer zone for the family. But after he died … there was no one to be that anymore.”
— Jack Stapleton
This line defines Drew’s role as Jack’s mediator and affirms his emotional labor within the family. Without Drew, conflicts sharpen, showing how his quiet presence once absorbed volatility and how his absence exposes fault lines.

“Don’t tell Mom and Dad. Don’t tell Hank.”
— Drew Stapleton
Drew’s final words are an appeal born of love and shame. They set the novel’s central moral conflict in motion: a protective lie that metastasizes into estrangement, proving how secrecy can turn devotion into damage.

“I think there’s one dead person in this family who might disagree with that.”
— Hank Stapleton
Hank’s barb channels grief into blame, preserving a simple story in which Jack is at fault. The bitterness also signals how idealizing the dead can dehumanize the living, locking the family into an unwinnable script.

“You got in the car—drove too fast—hit the bridge going eighty-five—spun out on the black ice—crashed through the railing and plunged yourself and our baby brother into an icy cold river! Which part of that didn’t kill him?”
— Hank Stapleton
This accusation reads like a prosecution’s closing argument, revealing how pain seeks certainty. Its specificity underscores how stories—accurate or not—can harden into “truth” when families have no alternative narrative.

“The part—where I wasn’t driving!”
— Jack Stapleton
Jack’s retort ruptures the family’s dominant narrative in one breath. It forces a reckoning with nuance and imperfection, repositioning Drew as a loved, flawed human being and initiating the family’s path from blame toward healing.

Drew Stapleton