56 pages • 1 hour read
The Smell Of Other People's Houses
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Character Analysis
Ruth
Content Warning: This section discusses teen pregnancy, domestic abuse, sexual abuse of a child, substance use disorder, and mental health conditions.
Ruth is the primary narrator that opens and ends the story. At the beginning of the novel, Ruth is a teenage girl close to 17, coping with life in her stern Catholic grandmother’s household. She introduces the struggles of Coming of Age in Times of Change as she grows up mourning the disruption of her family. Ruth considers Alaska’s statehood a turning point in her life and the cause of her father’s death and her mother’s mental health crisis. In contrast to her sister Lily, Ruth has vivid memories of her parents’ love and their happy family time. These childhood memories and her grandmother’s strictness render Ruth hopeless and heartbroken. She feels her heart “all beat out” (7), dwelling on the past and the way things used to be for her family. Her grandmother imposes strict Catholic values on her that limit her freedom and wound her self-esteem. Ruth leads a restricted life as a young girl and doubts her self-worth.
Through Ruth, the novel explores the experience of teen pregnancy. Motivated by her desire for a sense of self, she pursues a relationship with Ray, a boy from a prosperous Republican family. This relationship is Ruth’s only resort feeling she transgresses her grandmother’s restrictions. Still immature, inexperienced, and unaware of Ray’s character, Ruth encounters a second turning point discovering she is pregnant. When Ray leaves her for a new girlfriend, Ruth loses trust in people. Growing up in an isolated environment and in a society where women’s agency is still limited, Ruth’s fate is decided by her grandmother who sends her to an abbey to give birth and place her child for adoption. She realizes that nothing changed for Ray, who is a young man, and the responsibility for the pregnancy falls on her. As a teenager, Ruth feels lost and unable to control her life. Knowing she cannot parent her child, she surrenders to her grandmother’s decision.
Isolated in the abbey away from her friends and community, Ruth feels herself disintegrating. She criticizes Catholic values like her grandmother’s, who dwells on “guilt” and “sin,” as she feels punished and unable to find freedom from her struggles. However, during her time at the abbey, Ruth learns the histories of her mother and grandmother. She realizes that the women in her family follow a similar life pattern, with her grandmother growing up at the same abbey and her mother living in a convent instead of a mental health facility. Her realization that she “deserve[s] better” signifies her growing consciousness.
Ruth longs for love and intimacy, something her emotional reaction over the brotherly affection between Hank and Jack demonstrates. Ruth finds hope in the teenage community. Selma’s letter indicates the love between the two friends and encourages Ruth as she calls her “brave.” Her unexpected meeting with Hank, who visits her in the abbey, allows her to share her struggles and battle her feelings of loneliness.
Ruth establishes her passing to maturity when she accepts her baby’s adoption to ensure a different future for it. Throughout the story, her desires and thoughts are ignored, but she finally claims her right to at least decide about the foster family. Ruth recalls her childhood when she sees the couple that resembles her parents and decides that her baby could have a chance of growing up in a loving family. The experience leaves Ruth heartbroken, but her return to Fairbanks signals a new start. Ruth proves resilient and forgives her grandmother who also suffered from her own traumas and her hopelessness over her daughter’s mental health crisis. Ruth’s reunion with her friends and Hank promises a hopeful future for her character.
Dora
Dora is the second narrator in the story and the main Indigenous character. Dora is a 16-year-old Inupiat girl Coping With The Trauma of Familial Disruption. Her parents have substance use disorders. Dora considers herself “unflappable” because of her difficult life, but the experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault by her father traumatized her. Dora’s struggles, however, connect to the legacy of colonial trauma. Indigenous peoples experienced a long history of cultural genocide and disruption of their communities with lasting effects, evident in Dora’s character. Through Dora, the novel reaches beyond a stereotypical character to demonstrate the human experience of Indigenous peoples in Alaska. While exploring Dora’s suffering, the story emphasizes her survival and resilience.
After her father’s arrest, Dora lives with her friend Dumpling’s family, a loving Indigenous family that contrasts her own. She still sees her mother but resents her ignoring the sexual abuse Dora experiences from her father. Dora desires a sense of belonging. In Dumpling’s father, she finds a caring parent. Despite being from different nations, as Dumpling is Athabascan, they operate like sisters. Dora’s inner distress, however, persists. She experiences nightmares and is constantly insecure about having to return home. This insecurity sparks her jealousy and resentment over Dumpling’s connection to Ruth. Seeing Dumpling talking to Ruth and knowing where her mother lives, makes her afraid of losing her best friend. Her win of the Ice Classic prize, while being a gift that could secure her future, also troubles her. Soon, her father threatens her, asking for the money, and instigates more fear. However, Dora achieves peace at the fish camp, a place where the Indigenous community comes together to gather salmon. Apart from Dumpling’s home, the Indigenous community also offers Dora a sense of belonging. At fish camp, Dora feels like “being part of a family” as everyone has a “purpose.”
A turning point for Ruth is Dumpling’s accident, which increases her fear of loss. Even if she blames Ruth and her mother, she realizes that her anger can be harmful. Dora finally confesses her distress to Ruth’s grandmother who approaches her by sharing her own abandonment by her father. She realizes that her struggles are not hers alone and absorbs the old woman’s advice “to stop expecting the worst out of life” (193). The news of Dumpling’s recovery fills her with hope and finds a new meaning of friendship with Lily and Bunny.
Dora finally confronts her father, and subsequently her traumas. She remains present outside her house when she witnesses another scene of domestic abuse, and, fearless, she responds to her father’s threats. He is surprised by her courage and is arrested again. Dora knows that her mother is hurt and promises to support her, taking a different stance than her mother’s tolerance of abuse.
Alyce
Alyce, the third narrator of the story, is a 16-year-old girl who loves dancing and dreams of going to dance school. Still grappling with her parents’ divorce which instilled in her a feeling of guilt, feeling that “everything is always [her] fault” (46). Alyce strives not to disappoint them putting her dreams on hold. In summer, even though she longs to participate in dance audition for scholarships in Fairbanks, she rejoins her father on his boat, the Squid, to help him with commercial fishing.
Alyce is tired of fishing and envisions a life of her own as she comes of age. However, her love of the sea remains and her childhood on the boat defined her character: “I breathe in diesel, the smell of my childhood, of sleeping in the belly of this boat that has always made my dreams bouncy I never sleep as well anywhere as I do here on the Squid” (47). Life in town and life at sea constitute parts of Alyce’s identity as she connects her teenage dreams to her childhood on the boat.
Alyce’s story intertwines with Hank’s when she saves his brother Sam from drowning. Alyce finds her first love in Sam and their time together on her father’s boat is key in her character development. Alyce manages to approach Sam, demonstrating her will to connect. His company makes her feel less alone as she realizes the struggles of another teenager. The two find a mutuality that defines them. As Alyce teaches him her boat and fishing expertise, she rekindles her love of fishing. Sam understands her father’s love and his stance helps Alyce overcome her guilt. It is Sam who urges her to claim her dreams, encouraging her to speak to her father. She watches her father striving to reunite Sam with his brothers and realizes that he cares for her: “Dad’s doing this for Sam because he knows I care about Sam. He’s doing it for me” (157). As her father sends her back for the audition, the story demonstrates that Alyce was defined by self-doubt.
After Sam’s kiss and her dance audition, Alyce gains a new sense of self. She feels fearless and self-confident: “For the first time, I danced like someone who knew what she wanted. It felt fearless, like I was letting nobody down, especially myself” (208). Alyce’s character gains further importance as she gains Hank’s gratitude for saving his brother. Alyce receives the dance scholarship, achieving her dream but also defining Hank’s journey.
Hank
Hank is the only male narrator in the novel. He is 17 years old, and, like the other protagonists, he is Coping With the Trauma of Familial Disruption. Hank has left home in Anchorage with his brothers, Jack and Sam, as stowaways on a ferry. After his father’s death, who drowned in a tsunami after a devastating earthquake, the boys struggled with their mother’s abusive boyfriends. Hurt by his mother’s inability to stay strong, Hank resents her, and the loss of his father makes his world fall apart. Like Ruth, Hank considers Alaska’s statehood a negative turning point in his life as it links to his family’s collapse.
Hank is discouraged throughout the story and, without any money, the responsibility of protecting his younger brothers exacerbates his inner distress. Hank attempts to become a “father figure” but the role of being “the man of the family” proves hard on his teenage self (110). While his brothers are more optimistic and dreamier, Hank considers himself “levelheaded,” keeping his mind on their survival despite the still vivid memories of his father. After Sam falls from the ferry and disappears, Hank believes he confronts another loss and hopelessness overtakes him. Hank begins a road trip to Fairbanks with Jack and a social worker, after Phil, the ferry’s watchman helps them find a foster family.
Despite his struggles, Hank remains an affectionate and loving brother. His evident affection toward Jack is what makes Ruth emotional on their first unexpected meeting. Seeing a crying Hank becomes interested in Ruth, wondering what the story of a sad pregnant teenage girl is. Using the red ribbon as an excuse to visit her in secret outside the abbey, he demonstrates his desire for connection. The two teenagers instantly sense each other’s troubles. Their meeting is a crucial point, sparking hope and creating intimacy between them, as Hank is relieved “to talk to someone else about their life” (167). Hank feels that his brother’s disappearance and his meeting with Ruth have made him “someone new.” Inwardly, Hank hopes to meet Ruth again in Fairbanks.
Hank completes his journey when he reunites with Sam in Fairbanks. Despite his start as a pessimistic character, Hank survives and sees that loss is not the only factor in his life. After Ruth’s return, Hank is more patient and hopeful for a different future.
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