The Perfect Shot

Todd is an outsider at Brian’s school; in the beginning, Brian mostly knows him as the odd boy who is bullied and wears all black. In the novel’s early scenes, Todd answers Mr. Fortner’s questions in class and seems annoyed by the ignorance of other students. Neither he nor Brian is pleased that they are paired together for their history project, but Todd soon sees that Brian is willing to work, and Brian learns that Todd likes basketball and admires his skills. As such, the boys give each other the chance to overcome black-and-white thinking, learning to see the hidden depths in others. Once they start learning about Leo Frank, they also bond over their mutual interest in justice. Brian can tell that Todd values truth above all else, and this throughline makes Todd a relatively static character. While Todd ends the book more sympathetic to the nuances in Brian’s plight, his strong moral compass helps guide Brian to make decisions based on his own principles rather than other people’s expectations or desires.

Todd and Brian come to trust each other, and Todd reveals that he is gay and that his religiously conservative parents kicked him out of their home. He lives with his brother, a lawyer named Warren. Brian, in turn, trusts Todd enough to ask him for help when Julius is arrested and listens to him when Todd encourages him to speak out about Mr. Daine’s case. In the end, Brian’s connection to Todd saves his life: Elise, along with Warren and Todd, rushes to the scene where Brian and Officer Recks shoot each other and gets him to the emergency room in time to save him.

Julius Malik is Brian’s best friend and the star of their basketball team. He is outgoing and loveable around his team—he has nicknames for each of them such as Ricochet, Brainman, and Highrise. However, he is not always nice to everyone outside of the basketball team, and he has nicknames for them as well. For example, he calls Todd “The Turd” until he knows him better. Amanda’s younger brother Cory called Julius “Joyous” when he was still alive, and even though it was a mispronunciation, the nickname stuck because most people thought it was fitting.

Julius’s arrest causes a huge shift in his attitude and mindset. He becomes volatile and unpredictable both on the court and among his friends. He blows up at Mr. Fortner, gets angry with Brian for looking to others for help, and hogs the ball during basketball games. After being a victim of racial profiling by the police, he does not feel like he can trust his white teacher, coach, and teammates. In a book that critiques the American justice system, Julius’s situation stands in for the way Black men are disproportionately targeted by police officers due to anti-Black bias.

Eventually, Brian helps Julius believe that he and the team can trust each other, and they need to in order to play their best. He also insists that Julius tell his parents about his arrest, and he and Todd’s brother, Warren, help guide the Maliks through the process of suing the officers who mistreated him. At the end of the novel, Julius’s parents decide to move out of Willison; they hoped that the suburban area would be a safer place for their family, but it actually prevented Julius from recognizing his true identity as a young, gifted, Black man—not just someone trying to fit in with his white classmates and teammates.

Mr. Fortner is Brian’s history teacher. He is wise and knowledgeable, and he wants to show his students why it’s important to be engaged in one’s community and aware of social, political, and legal issues. His main goal through his course is to teach his students how history can be cyclical and patterns repeat themselves if no one steps in to stop them. He challenges his students to make connections between the past and present themselves and illustrate them in creative ways. He also encourages them to find examples of people who stood up against the status quo and stopped cycles of corruption, abuse, and injustice. In many ways, Mr. Fortner’s assignment fuels the drama and emotional weight of the novel as the students realize how they are participants in various historical patterns. Through his wisdom and insightful teaching methods, he takes on a mentor archetype, shepherding his students toward a new understanding of the world. This has a concrete impact on Brian, who ends the novel wanting to become a history teacher just like Mr. Fortner.

Mr. Daine is Amanda’s father, and he has been wrongly accused of murdering Amanda, her mother, and her little brother Cory. Mr. Daine embodies the theme of The Danger of Black-and-White Thinking as his trial is more about character assassination than actual evidence. For example, much of the prosecution’s argument rests on the fact that Mr. Daine was unfaithful to his wife, even though he has an alibi for the murder. While Brian is troubled that someone he knew and trusted had dark secrets, he still does not believe that Mr. Daine committed the murders and knows that these details do not constitute evidence. Through his example, Brian learns that most people are not wholly good or wholly bad. Mr. Daine’s trial also gives Brian a practical analog for his history project, in which an innocent man was lynched because a crowd presumed he was guilty. As such, Mr. Daine embodies the idea that everyone deserves a fair trial and highlights the injustices of the legal system, which is often preoccupied with incriminating someone rather than finding the true culprit.