All Good People Here

Nearly all characters in All Good People Here harbor secrets. The novel concerns itself with the reasons people choose to keep those secrets, the effects of those secrets becoming known, and how far people will go to protect them.

Krissy and Billy Jacobs are the characters with the biggest secrets to keep, although their reasons for doing so are different. For years, Krissy believes her son, Jace, killed her daughter, January. After January’s death, Krissy cannot view Jace the same way, and she keeps him at arm’s length for much of her life. Nonetheless, her instinct the night of the murder is to protect her son. She covers up the crime, spray-painting a hateful message on their kitchen walls and making it look like an intruder killed January. She explains her feelings to Jace in a letter: “[E]verything I did that night [...] I did for you? To protect you. [...] It was the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I would do it again. For you” (200). In some ways, this is a testament to the love a mother has for her child. However, Krissy’s world shatters when she learns that Jace did not kill January, and that she pushed her son away and muddled the crime scene for no reason.

Krissy keeps another secret, one that costs her her life: Her old friend Luke (Dave) Davies is the father of her children, not her husband Billy. Krissy confesses this to her partner, Jodie—her relationship with whom is yet another secret Krissy keeps throughout her life. When she tells Jodie about the twins’ parentage, Krissy notes that “it felt as if a band had been wrapped tightly around her chest since 1994, and now, for the first time, it [is] beginning to loosen” (231). Krissy resolves to come clean to Luke and Jace so that they can have a relationship and so she can carry on with her life with a clear conscience. Krissy’s instincts are noble, but when her resolve to come clean crashes up against Billy’s desire to keep his own secrets hidden, Krissy pays with her life without ever having the closure she desired.

Billy reveals in the Epilogue that he learned the truth of the twins’ parentage the night January died. In his rage, he planned to scare Krissy by flinging open the basement door as she came up the stairs. Instead, it is January whom he first accidentally injures, and then murders in a fit of rage. As soon as January dies, Billy “[prepares] himself for the performance of a lifetime” (309), keeping the truth of what he did a secret and allowing the case to go cold. Billy even kills Krissy to keep his secret when he learns that she knows the truth and plans to tell Jace. Billy illustrates the lengths to which a person will go to protect their secrets from becoming known. He is also an example of how The Veneer of Civility and the societal mistrust of mothers enable deadly secrets to lurk beneath supposedly lawful and righteous communities.

The novel offers Luke and his secrets as an alternative to the above examples, showing how secrets are sometimes employed to avoid revealing truths that would cause further harm. Flowers utilizes secrets as red herrings, directing the reader’s suspicions to Luke by initially implying that he, like everyone else in Wakarusa, has dark secrets. Through her investigation, Margot learns that her uncle Luke fathered January and Jace Jacobs. When she finds January’s dance programs in a secret compartment of his desk, Margot worries that Luke may have been responsible for January’s death. However, she later learns that Luke lied about not knowing the Jacobses to protect his wife, Rebecca, who experienced infertility, and Margot, who has always viewed Luke as a father figure. Margot forgives her uncle for the lies he told: “Although he’d told lies and kept secrets [...] she now understood why he had” (288). With these revelations, Margot realizes that sometimes secrets are meant to prevent unnecessary harm.