Blog 3-Minor Characters

It's time for what you've all been waiting for; Blog number three is here (insert varius sorts of applause) ! For my third and final Blog I will be discussing the different secondary characters in Chris Crutcher's "Whale Talk". The extensive band of secondary characters prestented in "Whale Talk" is interesting to say the least. While each has his own unique story, many of them are very similar, and repeating patterns are very easy to discover when you stop and think about it. The theme of child abuse appears in at least half of the characters' strories. For instance Chris Coughlin, Carly Hudson, Heidi, Barbour, Rich Marshall, and even TJ himself has a shade of it himself (I mean, he's adopted, something must of happened). So the whole "I was abused as a child and am only doing to show my dad I'm worth more than crap" story starts getting pretty old about fifty pages in. Not to say Child Abuse isn't a major issue, but is nowhere near as common as it is in this book, I mean, I don't know anyone personnally who's been abused as a child, but in this world I could have a "who has the most scars from where their father beat them" contest. Well, This blog is supposed to be about minor characters, and over half of my blog so far has been a rant about how screwed up this book world is, so I'll start describing a few of the many secondary characters. First is Chris Coughlin, a kid who was abused as a child (see previous blogs for details) and now has brain damage. He also has a dead brother who was the biggest and most popular sports god around, and now gets yelled at almost daily by Barbour, Rich Marshall, and the football coach for wearing his brother's letter jacket.
Another interesting character is Icko. Icko's real name is Oliver Van Zandt, but they call him Icko because TJ abriviated his title of Interim Coach Oliver to I.C.O., but Chris thought that they were spelling something he couldn't understand and sounded it out to "Icko", and the name stuck. Regardless, he literally lives at All-Night Fitness (sleeps in the sauna, showers, shave, etc. in locker room) andone day saw the Mermen training and becam their Coach. Well that about wraps up my final blog. Those are all of my thoughts on "Whale Talk" by Chris Crutcher.