Defining Characters by Clothing and Actions

In reading Presto Variations by Lee Lamothe, which I reviewed in my last post, I was impressed by how he defined the lead characters, Ray Tate and Djuna Brown, by their clothing and their past actions.

Since I started reading Moira’s fine blog, Clothes in Books, I have been more conscious of how authors can use clothing to aid in the storytelling.

Lamothe created vivid visual images of Tate and Brown through their clothing and hair.

For Tate:

In spite of the heat he wore a short hacked-out brown leather jacket over a bright untucked Hawaiian shirt of avian motif that covered his handcuffs. His gun was in his right ankle boot under his jeans’ cuff. A bead chain hung around his neck, dragged to the left side where his city badge was in his shirt pocket. He had a short satanic grey-shot beard, the tip of his left ear was gone.

And:

        Ray Tate pushed his sunglasses up into his long

        straggly hair, ……”

Brown may be even more dramatic in appearance:

…… running her hands through her spiked hair ….. She
wore a red T-shirt from the Pompidou in Paris and khaki hiking shorts. Her legs were slim and brown. Her gun, a little silver automatic, was in plain view in an open holster on her right hip; her handcuffs were at her spine; the outline of her State Police sergeant’s badge, hanging on a necklace, was visible between her breasts under the shirt. On her feet were bright red slippers, threaded with little silver spangles and bangles.
 

 From these two paragraphs it is clear that Tate and Brown are not your conventional plain clothes officers. Not for them the generic blazer, dress shirt, basic pants and comfortable walking shoes.

If they were undercover officers they might be designed to blend into certain communities but as regular plain clothes police they would stand out in any police station.

Their outsize personalities are reflected in their appearances. They are not a cautious pair of methodical officers.

They are later aptly described as “goofy beatnik cops”.

Still each is respectfully regarded within police services because each has killed in the line of duty. Tate has killed three and Brown has killed one.

They have earned a special status that allows their eccentricities to be overlooked by more conventional police brothers and sisters. In a striking phraseTate and Brown have “wiped shadows off the wall”.

Uniquely dressed and genuinely tough, Tate and Brown are a memorable duo. I will long remember them.