Where Things Come Back Characters

A Half Glass Empty Perhaps in response to his dull small town life, our seventeen-year-old narrator, Cullen Witter, has formed a veneer of sarcasm and utter pessimism: Being seventeen and b...

When we are first introduced to Cabot Searcy, he's just Benton Sage's charming, playboy roommate. He seems irresponsible and cavalier, but not necessarily dangerous: Cabot Searcy had the kind of c...

The Content Kid Gabriel Witter always seems happy to be wherever he is, which is a trait that Cullen deeply admires in his younger brother. He loves the people around him without complication, a...

John Barling rarely appears in the book, but he's certainly got the whole town of Lily, Arkansas, stirred up over his supposed sighting of the Lazarus bird. For the record, Lazarus is a d...

When we first meet Benton Sage, his appearance seems to come out of nowhere. How random is it to flip from the story of a kid in an American small town (Cullen Witter) to that of a missionary going...

Alma Ember arrives on the scene as a romantic prospect for Cullen—even though she seems a bit too mature for him. After all, he's a seventeen-year-old boy, and she is older, has gone to college (...

The thing about Lucas Cader is that he seems entirely uncomplicated. He is Cullen and Gabriel's best friend outside their family, and he's probably the most socially well-adjusted kid in their grou...

We learn from the very beginning that Ada Taylor is The Girl to Cullen (and to a lot of other boys in Lily, Arkansas). The hottest girl in school, she has this mysterious, dangerous air about her....

Cullen's mom initially seems like the strongest member of the family in the face of tragedy. When Oslo dies, she goes over to take care of her sister every single day to make sure that she has comp...

Mr. Witter is certainly trying to do the right thing. At the beginning of the book, though, he and Cullen don't really get along. And the thing is, Cullen's not even quite sure why: Here's the...

Poor Aunt Julia. She used to be Cullen and Gabriel's vivacious, overly chatty aunt—showing up unannounced and basically talking their ears off until they figured out a way to get rid of her....

Russell Quitman is, to put it simply, a meathead and a jerk. He's a big dude at school who likes to pick on people who are weaker than him. This already makes him despicable to Cullen, but what rea...

At the beginning, Cullen isn't terribly impressed by Lucas Cader's girlfriend, Mena Prescott. To him, she seems like kind of a ditz and he looks down on her: Her name was Mena Prescott, and she re...