Nathan Gossett

Quick Facts

• Role: Reluctant heir to Goswood Grove; landlord to Benedetta "Benny" Silva; shrimper living on the coast
• First appearance: 1987 storyline of The Book of Lost Friends
• Family: Grandson of Judge Gossett; younger brother of Robin Gossett; nephew to Will and Manford Gossett
• Setting ties: Inherits Goswood Grove plantation and the farmhouse Benny rents; torn between the coast and Augustine
• Core conflict: Private grief versus public responsibility to a painful family legacy

Who They Are

At heart, Nathan Gossett is a good man trying not to feel anything. He keeps the sea as a shield between himself and Goswood Grove, a place that holds the death of his grandfather, his father, and—most shattering—his sister, Robin. His reluctance to engage with the plantation’s legacy is not apathy but a survival tactic. When Benny’s curiosity opens the house’s archive, Nathan is pulled from numb avoidance into the moral demands of memory, embodying the novel’s meditation on The Power of Stories and History: that bearing witness can transform private pain into communal stewardship.

Personality & Traits

Nathan appears closed-off and practical—a man of boats, not boardrooms. But beneath the guarded surface is a conscientious thinker whose grief has made him wary of attachment. He balances a stubborn refusal to “belong” to Goswood with a deep instinct toward fairness and care, which emerges as soon as someone asks him to do the right thing rather than to perform it.

• Detached and reluctant: Intends to sell Goswood to escape its pain; tells Benny, “I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I don’t want any of it.” His first impulse is flight, not engagement.
• Grieving brother: His hostility toward the house masks loss: “I hate that house… If Robin hadn’t been so obsessed… she wouldn’t have ignored the symptoms with her heart.” He maps tragedy onto place, turning architecture into a scapegoat.
• Inherently decent: Quietly pays for Benny’s roof repair, hands over the library key, and stays courteous even when stressed—signals that his moral baseline is generosity, not control (unlike his uncles).
• Private: Keeps his coastal life siloed; shares little about his mother’s family or his work, maintaining distance as protection.
• Curious and conscientious: Once confronted with primary sources, he stays up all night reading plantation ledgers and the family Bible; when truth is concrete, he refuses to look away.
• Working-class groundedness: Calloused hands, sun-browned skin, jeans and boots—a visual counterpoint to his uncles’ white-collar power, underscoring that integrity and stewardship aren’t class-bound.

Character Journey

Nathan begins as a man defined by negation: he will not live at Goswood, will not unpack its past, will not risk feeling. Benny’s request for library access nudges him into the archives, where the ledgers’ names and stories humanize the abstract “estate” he’s been trying to sell. Reading alongside Benny turns history into encounter, breaking his protective numbness. The true pivot arrives with Robin’s hidden project and final letter: her vision reframes Goswood not as a cursed inheritance but as a responsibility to the people whose lives were recorded (and often erased) there. Nathan cancels the cemetery sale, backs Benny’s “Tales from the Underground,” and embraces stewardship—not by denying grief but by converting it into care for place, memory, and community.

Key Relationships

• Benny Silva: What begins as a landlord–tenant transaction becomes a partnership and tentative romance. Benny’s fearless curiosity and classroom-driven purpose give Nathan a safe, structured way to face what he’s avoided; she models how history can be an act of service rather than a burden of shame. With her, he learns to replace secrecy with shared work.
• Robin Gossett: Robin’s absence is Nathan’s most present relationship. His guilt over her death makes the house feel cursed, but her letter restores her as a guide rather than a wound. By honoring her inclusive vision for Goswood, he transforms grief into a mandate.
• Will and Manford Gossett: Powerful, acquisitive, and controlling, Nathan’s uncles embody the family’s urge to manage assets and narratives. Nathan’s estrangement from them—his refusal to play by their rules—clarifies his outsider integrity and sharpens his choice to prioritize history over profit.

Defining Moments

Even as Nathan tries to stay out of Augustine’s orbit, specific decisions pull him into responsibility and reshape his identity.

• Giving Benny the key at the farmers’ market: A reluctant concession that quietly launches the 1987 plot. Why it matters: It’s the first crack in his avoidance—permission becomes participation.
• The all-night research session: He and Benny pore over plantation ledgers and the family Bible until dawn. Why it matters: Names on paper become lives in conscience; history stops being “the house” and becomes people he cannot sell off.
• Finding Robin’s letter and project: He discovers her plans to honor all of Goswood’s people. Why it matters: The letter untangles his grief and gives him purpose, shifting him from escape to stewardship.
• Canceling the cemetery sale and backing “Tales from the Underground”: He acts on his new convictions. Why it matters: He moves from feeling to doing, choosing preservation, education, and community accountability.

Essential Quotes

I hate that house. That house is a curse. My father died there, my grandfather died there. If Robin hadn’t been so obsessed with fighting my uncles over the place, she wouldn’t have ignored the symptoms with her heart.

This is grief misread as destiny: Nathan treats tragedy as a property trait, which justifies his flight and numbs his guilt. The line exposes how he’s turned place into the enemy so he doesn’t have to face the randomness—and responsibility—of loss.

I don’t care. I don’t want to know. I don’t want any of it.

A staircase of refusals—care, knowledge, possession—maps his emotional barricade. The repetition underscores how knowing would obligate him to act; the novel’s arc systematically dismantles each “don’t” until he cares, learns, and claims the legacy.

Robin would have loved this. My sister had all kinds of ideas about Goswood, about restoring the house, documenting its past, cleaning out the gardens. She wanted to open a museum that would focus on all the people of Goswood, not just the ones who slept in those four-poster beds in the big house.

Here Nathan moves from aversion to advocacy, speaking in Robin’s register of inclusion. By echoing her language—“all the people of Goswood”—he adopts her moral frame, shifting the house from a site of family prestige to a space of collective remembrance.