46 pages • 1 hour read
First Lie Wins
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Character Analysis
Evie Porter/Lucca Marino
Evie Porter, born as Lucca Marino, is the active, dynamic protagonist of First Lie Wins. Evie is a highly resourceful and observant character who comes from a humble background. She grew up with little money or formal education. She had to care for her unwell and dying mother and became a con artist to pay for her mother’s treatments. Evie’s excellence as a criminal was noticed by the malevolent crime boss Mr. Smith, who coerced Evie to complete jobs in his employ. This character background creates a moral motivation for Evie’s criminal activity in support of her role as the novel’s sympathetic anti-hero. Mr. Smith often gives Evie very little information about how to complete the tasks he’s set for her, so Evie often must devise solutions to seemingly impossible problems on the fly. Though Evie is forced to complete these jobs under threat of violence/exposure from Mr. Smith, she still enjoys her criminality and chooses to continue in a life of crime after Mr. Smith’s demise. Arguably, the narrative presents her character arc as gaining control over her life, rather than turning away from a life of crime.
Evie’s sense of being trapped is rooted in a sense of yearning for a normal relationship, as expressed through her interactions with Ryan. As noted in The Malleability of Identity, Evie longs for the possibility of going “back to being Lucca Marino, small-town girl from Eden, North Carolina, who lives in that fantasy house” (79). Evie sees Ryan and the life Ryan leads as potentially being that fantasy-future that Lucca Marino envisioned for herself. She also increasingly likes and admires Ryan. Because of this, Evie often feels regret over how she’s lying to and manipulating Ryan; she notes that this regret is “the first time I felt bad for doing my job” (92). Evie’s regret stems from the difficulty she has reconciling the necessity of manipulating Ryan with the yearning she feels to settle down with him.
Evie puts an end to this yearning—and an end to Mr. Smith—because she has a crucial quality that Mr. Smith lacks: empathy. Evie is able to assemble a community of criminals who trust her, and whom she trusts because she has the empathy to understand what they are going through and what they want from their careers. When Evie approaches Amy for the first time, she willingly blows her own cover and endangers her standing with Mr. Smith because she hopes that her ability to empathize with Amy’s problems will win Amy over to her side. Evie extends this same level of understanding to Devon and, eventually, to Ryan. As explored in the theme of Community as a Source of Power, it is only because of this community-building empathy that Evie is able to create the life for herself that she always dreamed of, and rid herself of the burden of Mr. Smith. These aspects of her character are what set her morally above her antagonist.
Ryan Sumner
Ryan Sumner is an attractive, 30-year-old man living in Lake Forbing, Louisiana. Ryan was raised by his grandparents and lives in the house that his grandparents left him when they died. In addition to inheriting their home, he inherited their business brokering black market goods under the guise of a trucking business. Ryan is, outwardly, the perfect partner: he is deeply attracted to Evie and fulfills many stereotypically masculine roles in their relationship, as shown by him “rescuing” her when she needed her tire changed. Evie later learns, though, that Ryan has a bifurcated personality: at home, he’s the ideal partner, but at work, he is cold, controlling and threatening. Evie is both frightened and aroused when she discovers this second part of Ryan’s personality.
Ryan is forthright with his intentions and emotions in ways that are new to Evie. After Evie gets herself out of jail, she tries to pick a fight with Ryan to distract him. Ryan cuts through this tactic, telling her that he refuses “to play games with her” (182). Ryan is also the first to admit that he hasn’t been entirely truthful in their relationship, and that is family business isn’t entirely legal. Ryan’s ability to be open about the parts of himself that he’s hidden from the rest of the world is new to Evie and is part of what encourages Evie to bring together a community of criminals who can trust one another. The relationship with Ryan thus helps to drive her character development. Ryan’s ability to hide parts of his personality, and his own morally dubious activities, allows him to sympathize with Evie’s struggle and to accept her choices. He is a realistic partner for Evie because they are both morally ambiguous.
Mr. Smith/George
Mr. Smith is the static antagonist of First Lie Wins. He is Evie’s a predatory and controlling boss who manipulates and coerces down-on-their-luck people to work for him. Mr. Smith is able to maintain power through anonymity and he only speaks to Evie using a voice modulator. Until the denouement, the narrative presents him as a form of non-character, a shadowy influence who is only known through his name and some of his actions. The opacity of his motivations and intentions help to drive much of the novel’s mystery and suspense. Mr. Smith acts in Evie’s life under the alias of George, someone who pretends to be in Evie’s position as another manipulated employee of Mr. Smith’s.
Evie is able to orchestrate Mr. Smith’s downfall in part because Mr. Smith lacks Evie’s empathy. Mr. Smith fails to see his employees as collaborators and so turns them against him. Mr. Smith operates by keeping his employees isolated and in competition with one another. He maintains power by controlling and intervening in the personal lives of his employees. He builds no meaningful relationships with them, and this allows him to feel comfortable killing them when they are no longer useful. Evie, by contrast, builds a network of con artists who work together. Mr. Smith is unable to see the goodness and value in other people and it is this cynicism and mistrust that Evie and Amy are able to use against him. As an antagonist, Mr. Smith’s key oppositional flaw is his lack of appreciation for others and, as a result, his selfish blindness. He double-crosses his main client, the Connollys, failing to uphold the con-artist honor code.
Devon
Devon is Evie’s co-conspirator. He is a Black, MIT-educated hacker who typically operates in the background of Evie’s jobs. Devon is highly secretive about his background and Evie’s narration reveals very little about him through the opening sections of the novel. This secrecy speaks to Evie’s impression of Devon’s “paranoia,” which she considers “knows no bounds” (154). Devon is also willing to bail on a job if he deems the scheme too dangerous or sees something starting to go wrong. He’s more skittish than Evie and doesn’t bear the same risk as she does, as she is the front woman for their activity. In this way, he is a foil as well as an ally to Evie, highlighting the personal risks she takes and raising the suspense.
Devon’s character develops throughout the novel. As Devon’s partnership with Evie progresses, he becomes more involved with her in her work and begins to open up to her. Devon is shown taking more active roles in Evie’s jobs, such as his work as a bartender on the Tate and Holder jobs. Devon’s romantic attachment to Amy’s sister, Heather, helps to create the growing sense of the bonded group of criminals as the novel progresses. Though Devon is not nearly as present on the page as Evie, his participation in her jobs is often crucial to the success of those jobs. His character is a key part of the narrative’s portrayal of Community as a Source of Power and connection-building as a means for fulfilment.
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