Lavender’s Blue: A Character Chart

~ Jenny

The POD has come and gone and my new place is a mess because I just unloaded everything at once. But I can fix that.

What I can’t fix: How confusing people are finding the many characters in Lavender’s Blue. So I made a chart. I may have missed some people, I was doing it from memory, so feel free to weigh in to make things clearer and more accurate. And, as the chart says, there are some inaccuracies on there because people lie, aka, I didn’t want to put in spoilers.

Also, we need a last name for Marvin, an extremely minor character.

80 thoughts on “Lavender’s Blue: A Character Chart”

      1. I assumed they were brothers. But this is another reason it’s odd that Liz doesn’t know Lavender and Skye, since they’re her cousin’s cousins.

        2. I don’t know my cousins’ cousins. Absolutely no idea who they are.
          Actually I barely know my cousins, so that may just be my family (weird).
          But I knew very few people growing up who were younger than me and paid them no attention. It was people in my neighborhood and people in my classes that I knew. I knew about others without knowing them, and I probably couldn’t tell you their names today. And I grew up in a very small town, about 3000 people then.

          1. I had an acquaintance in high school, we weren’t really friends but after graduating we worked for the same company. Of course we got to know each other better and found out she was my cousin’s cousin. We lived in the same town but our mutual cousin was older than us by two or three years so there was no closeness, it happens. Sometimes we would greet each other with “cousin of my cousin”. Wow, that was a memory.

          3. I have no idea who my cousin’s cousins are. Actually, I don’t even know if they HAVE cousins, although they must.

          4. At one time, I “knew” my cousins’ cousins, but I never saw them outside my aunt’s house. And that was only during the odd holiday.

            I totally bought Liz having to be reintroduced to Molly’s cousins.

          5. I grew up in a factory town in Connecticut. I knew most of my mother’s nephews and nieces in that town, or in other small towns in the area. We lived in a duplex with my mother’s sister next door, so I knew those cousins well. Like brothers and sisters. Other cousins lived three houses down. Cousin Lorraine baby-sat us a lot. We visited mom’s brother every week, so two cousin s there. Mom hung out with two other female cousins and raised heck back in the 40s. Six more cousins.

            But my father’s nephews and nieces were all Texicans, spread from Galveston to Waco. We might see them once a year. They were mostly my oldest brother’s age, so not much more than names to me.

          6. Im my family there are cousins both quite a bit younger than I an quite a bit older. I know all their names, but only hung out with my age group. It’s almost like three different generations. I vaguely know the names of only a few of their kids but wouldn’t know them in person if I tripped over them. This is because while we visited frequently when I was growing up, I didn’t grow up in the same state. And forget about my parents’ cousins. Liz left town really young, so I think her experience would be the same. She would know the people she actually hung out with growing up, but otherwise? Not so much, especially if Cleveland and Dayton were not close in age.

      2. Yes. Both named after the cities they were conceived in, which gives you an idea of how little their parents got around.

        2. I caught on to the Cleve=Cleveland and Day= Dayton but early on and realized they were brothers, so when (Jimmy) Pitts was introduced I assumed he must be Pittsburgh, a much younger brother.
          So, in my head for a while, at least they’d traveled out of state! 😜

    2. This is so very helpful! Thank you.
      I’m on my second read and I was still struggling with who’s who.

      I am also wondering about the maiden name of ML and MB…

      1. I should have put that in, but I couldn’t remember it. I think I gave them one and it got cut. It’s like Marvin; we’ll have to make one up.

    3. I don’t think it’s Danger since that’s Liz’s father’s name (meaning Liz’s mother changed her name after marriage, so the maiden last name of both the mother and the aunt are obscured)

      1. And yet I got the feeling that Liz’s mother didn’t get married – she got pregnant, and had Liz. So I was assuming that her maiden name was Danger.

        1. Somewhere, in one of the books, it says that Cleve Blue paid Danger to marry her. I should search for that to double check the guy’s first name.

          1. I keep thinking of Johnny Dangerously a very old Michael Keaton film. Don’t know much more than just the title – don’t think I ever saw it.

        2. Mary Beth’s husband left when she got pregnant by Day Blue. It’s in LB. And Fay(e)’s maiden name is Pitts, which is where Jim Pitts comes in.

          I don’t think it’s odd that Liz doesn’t know 2nd cousins, who are 10 years younger. She left at 18, and as they were Top of the Pile 2nd cousins. Teenagers are notoriously oblivious to younger kids.

          1. Actually, she was pregnant when she got married. That’s why Cleve paid Danger to marry her. She’d been dating Danger, too. Mary Beth had a wild youth.

    4. Her maiden name I have forgotten.
      Mary Beth’s maiden name is the same as hers; her married name is Danger.

    5. No, we don’t know her maiden name , because her sister Mary Beth married a Danger and so Danger is Mary Beth’s married not her maiden name .

  2. Give Marvin a name he hates:
    Cooper, but people shorten it to Coop, and he was teased about being chicken as a child

    Hooker-plenty of backstory options

    Boner-also plenty of options… goes well with Weiner (I’m suddenly 12 year old boy)

    Seaman- hehehe… ima stop now.

    1. I spaced on Jill, too. Possibly because she is the most agreeable person in the town.

  5. Mac Blake – firefighter and EMT.

    Packing up to move and then unpacking is a nightmare but once it’s done you will feel more at home.

    2. I put my bed together last night so I am no longer sleeping on the floor. It’s a game-changer.

      How could I have forgotten Mac? I loved that guy. Of course, he’s got a much bigger role in Pink and V. I’ll put him in. Thank you!

      1. So okay his last name has to be Martin then. Marvin T. Yes it’s a cruel thing to do to your kid, but let’s assume his parents were pop culture deprived.

  7. Yay!!! I don’t see Marvin on the chart. I was glad to know Day’s full name. Day is an unusual name for anybody.

      2. Yes. I thoroughly enjoyed the ‘variations of Blue’ and had great fun sorting out the quirky and convoluted nature of the Blue relationships. I thought the whole Blue family concept was a stroke of comedic genius.

    2. There are a lot of them. And then more show up in Pink. And more in Vermillion. I’ll do character charts for them, too.

      The difficulty with Jill may be because she never leaves the bar. Since she’s not in conflict with anybody, she’s not a well-rounded figure.

      And I just realized I forgot Dave. He’s Bob’s character and that’s Bob’s subplot, so my people never interacted with him. Maybe I’ll make the one box police and military? I’m running out of room.

      1. If you are including minor characters: Annie the cab driver (whose last name we also don’t know) and Neil boyfriend of Ken.

        1. Yes, but I’m ignoring him. I never even gave him a name. Come to think of it, I’m not sure why he’s in there.

    4. I didn’t either. I felt their place in the story were defined sufficiently for me for them to be memorable & meaningful. And my experience with small towns in school years was even if there were some people you may have heard spoken off; if they were not in your immediate frame of reference via school etc you didn’t necessarily know them even if there was a family connection. It was usually only the older generations or the tabbies (who were into nasty gossip) that had the lineages of everyone at their fingertips.

      1. Mostly it was clear to me. The things that weren’t:
        How senator Wilcox was related to Margot and Peri
        What tbe relationship between the two Blue families was
        The relative ages of Liz, Molly, Lavender and Skye

        1. The senator is Margot’s mother and Peri’s grandmother.
          Cleveland and Dayton are brothers, so their children are cousins.
          Liz and Molly are 33 (Liz is older by a couple of months), Lavender is her late twenties, and Skye is in her early twenties.
          I can’t remember if Navy was 33 or not but he was either in Liz’s class or a year or two older.

  11. I’ve given up on worrying about remembering names/characters when I’m reading. My brain hasn’t been up for retaining details like it used to, ever since I had Covid—almost a year now! I just roll with it and read for vibes. Occasionally I do a search for the name if I’m really confused. Thank goodness for ebooks…

    1. I often just go with the flow and read for vibes the first time around. If I really like the book, then I’ll read it again and pay attention to the details. Not sure I’d ever have made it to the end of The Goblin Emperor if I’d tried to get my head around all those names and relationships on the first read.

  12. I saw a gravestone this week for Charles Marvin Cole, who died at 15 months in 1853.

    (Lurker, first-time commentating, thank you for the books, loved Lavender’s Blue.)

  14. I didn’t get confused either ,but it’s still nice to see a list of characters. Even though I do like my Kindle it’s far easier to look back to check things in a hard copy ,and you can re-read the good bits which is the really good snarky dialogue.

    1. You do know that you can go back and look at other parts of the ebook on the kindle! In fact you can just search for the name and go back to where they are introduced, then go right back to the page you were on. I was just having this conversation with a friend irl. She doesn’t know about or use bookmarks, highlighting, etc. Really it is easier.😀

  15. “Famous person and force of nature” somehow caused me to read Anemone as Awesome. Very appropriate braino.

  16. I was able to keep the characters pretty straight (with occasional looking back), but this is Nice–makes things instantly clear. Years ago, a character list with brief descriptions was often included at the beginning of novels–especially for mysteries or any kind of “complicated” story. I’m always delighted when I come across one of those (usually in an older library book). It’s SO convenient. Come across the name, can’t quite remember who that is, turn to the beginning of the book, and look in the alphabetical list. In these busy days, I frequently find myself leafing through pages for a character’s name and wishing those lists would come back in style.

  17. I didn’t get confused with the characters, and I felt their names sort of grouped them thematically. If they were related, they mostly had connected names – colours, cities, country singers, starting the same and so on. Which I felt told me a lot about the people doing the naming.

  18. Two things the chart made me think about : Faye married into the Blues so her snootiness is maybe trying to fit in/social aspiration rather than learned as a kid
    Alex is Peri’s uncle

  19. Thank you!

    Violet Blue is the sister of Cleveland and Dayton’s father, I assume? Or a woman called Violet proposed to by a Mr Blue who went ‘well, why not?’

      1. So if the Porters get married will the children be named after “new” country artists? Or choose a different genre? I like Marvin Lee. I can picture Lee Marvin as a cop.

        Thank you for the list.

        1. The names were Kitty’s idea, so I don’t see any of the kids following through on that.

  21. Like RainyWeather I love a good character list at the front of the book. Especially if it’s snarky like the ones in the St Mary’s Chronicles and Time Police books.

    I didn’t have too much trouble sorting everyone out in LB. Probably because, as Emily pointed out, the names are so thematic.

  22. I realized I was expecting to run into Dillie from Welcome to Temptation in this book, since the title always has me mentally singing the song…

  23. I know Faye and Jimmy both Pitts. What’s their relationship?

    Thank you for clarifying the relationship between Cleveland and Dayton. I was missing that. I also didn’t realize Violet was a generation above them.

    I also keep forgetting that Margot is the senator’s daughter. I hadn’t put together that Alex therefore was Peru’s uncle. Thank you to Debbie for pointing that out.

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