On a Quiet Street

Cora Holmon is initially portrayed as an archetypal blond suburban housewife who loves cooking, her daughter, and having a glass of wine with her best friend, Paige. She is deeply involved in her community through organizing charity events, volunteering, and making baked goods for others. Cora is one of the protagonists in On a Quiet Street. Over the course of the novel, Cora transforms from a deferential housewife into a strong, independent woman.

In the beginning of the novel, Cora suspects that her husband Finn is cheating on her, but she continually berates herself for being “paranoid.” She defers to him when he insists that he is not unfaithful. Glass shows an early indication of Cora’s strength when she enlists Paige to investigate Finn. Later, following an argument with Finn, she gets a makeover, complete with long, blond extensions. The long hair is significant because she had previously always kept it short because “Finn said he liked shorter hair” (167). Her extensions represent her desire to grow and reach out to others beyond her current harmful circle. After she learns from Paige of the extent of Finn’s infidelities, she confronts him with the information, immediately filing for divorce, and arranging for him to leave the house. Later, she moves to Florida on her own to embark on a new chapter of her life as a single woman. This is a profound transformation from the housewife seen in the opening chapters of On a Quiet Street.

Whilst dealing with her crumbling marriage, Glass also demonstrates Cora’s strength of character when Cora helps Nicola to escape her abusive marriage. Although this character development somewhat falters when Cora is tempted to have an affair with Paige’s husband, Grant, she ultimately recognizes what a betrayal it would be of her friendship, which further juxtaposes her with Finn.

Nicola Dawson is one of the protagonists in On a Quiet Street. She is English and was an independent, footloose 20-something working at a resort in the south of France when she met her husband, Lucas Kinney. They had a whirlwind romance and married soon after. After they moved to the United States, Lucas became increasingly controlling and abusive. He took away her passport and access to money so that she had no way of getting away from him. He even changed her name to “Georgia” to make it harder for family or friends to find her.

At the opening of the novel, Nicola is frightened and exhausted. Despite her abusive circumstances, she is determined to escape in order to give her infant daughter, Avery, a better life. As she thinks after meeting Cora for the first time, “I make a silent promise that that will be me—us: mother and daughter, carefree on a drive to soccer practice” (37). Nicola is clever and she reaches out to Cora for support when she knows that she needs it. She also thinks quickly to cover for Paige after Paige murders Lucas, resulting in an ideal outcome for all three women.

Despite being a sympathetic character, Nicola makes some morally gray decisions. She has an affair with Caleb Moretti; he is the father of her baby. During their relationship, she stole so that he would have money to supply his drug habit. When Caleb threatened her, she killed him with her car and kept these facts a secret from Paige and everyone else. However, after the revelation of these secrets, she is tearfully apologetic to Paige, which shows the guilt she felt about her actions. By creating this round character, Glass resists the trope of a submissive woman who is abused.

Finn Holmon is an archetypal, entitled man who is an antagonist. Although his wife, Cora, has some good memories of their time together, over the course of the novel he is consistently selfish, unfaithful, and rude. He enjoys sports and drinking and has affairs, both long-term and with sex workers. When his wife confronts him about his actions, he denies them categorically and lies. For instance, when she goes to a restaurant and finds him in a seemingly romantic situation with another woman, he insists that the other woman was simply a client and that he was not having an affair. He also has sex with his wife’s best friend. When faced with incontrovertible evidence of his infidelity, instead of apologizing, he uses the response that “[m]en like sex” to justify his actions (226). Glass uses misogynistic tropes to construct Finn as an antagonist. He is not discreet about his activities.

To reinforce the depth of his antagonism, Glass portrays him paying off his daughter, Mia, to keep his secret about his drug use. Following his brief stint in jail after being arrested as a suspect in Caleb’s murder, he is unrepentant. When he realizes that Cora is going to divorce him and force him to leave the house, he uses sexist language such as “crazy little witches’ circle” to describe Cora and her friends (295), suggesting his fear of female power and independence. Finn Holmon is a flat character who demonstrates no growth throughout the course of the novel and remains irredeemable. 

Lucas Kinney is Nicola’s abusive husband who is an antagonist in On a Quiet Street. Lucas is aggressive and violent with his wife in private while portraying himself outwardly as a friendly, normal man. When Nicola first met Lucas, he was charming and romantic. He did not reveal to her that he had previously been married and that his first wife had drowned at a young age. Over the course of their marriage, Lucas becomes increasingly violent and controlling of Nicola. His anger is volatile. He can be calm in one minute and then in the next, lash out at her. This epitomizes the theme of Forms of Control in Abusive Relationships.

When Cora discovers that Lucas’s late wife drowned, her sense that there is something “off” about him grows. As indirect characterization of Lucas’s duplicitous nature, Cora and Paige think that he is strange and creepy, while the men in the neighborhood he spends time with, notably Grant and Finn, see nothing wrong with him.

Lucas works as a judge, which gives him privilege and status in their small community. As a sign of his power and privilege, he is immediately given bail after being arrested for the murder of Caleb and tries to recapture Nicola. This chain of events shows the way that the system discounts the claims of women like Nicola in favor of privileged men like Lucas. Ultimately, Paige murders Lucas.