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Louise Monroe
Neil Hunter is Joanna Mason Hunter’s husband and the father of Gabriel Joseph Hunter. He is originally from Glasgow, Scotland. Joanna met Neil when she was working in the emergency room and Neil had just been beaten up by some thugs. She married him because she found him refreshingly self-sufficient, not in need of her protection and help. Neil is involved in sketchy business ventures, including amusement arcades, health clubs, private-hire vehicles, and beauty salons. Louise Monroe is investigating Neil for arson, for which he’s ultimately charged. When he gets into financial trouble, he gets mixed up with Michael Anderson, a suspected Glasgow drug dealer, and Anderson’s thugs, Peter and John, kidnap Joanna and the baby as the price for Neil’s businesses. Instead of signing the businesses over to Anderson immediately, Neil delays and tries to come up with the money another way, to Louise’s disgust. After she escapes from captivity, Joanna kicks Neil out while she decides whether to take him back, but it’s heavily implied that she never will.
Neil Hunter Quotes in When Will There Be Good News?
The When Will There Be Good News? quotes below are all either spoken by Neil Hunter or refer to Neil Hunter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Road Trip
Quotes
“So your whole identity, basically. What if Decker’s using it? You get the driving license of a Category A prisoner with a warrant out against him, and he gets you — upstanding citizen (so-called) —credit cards, money, keys, a phone. The last person who phoned Joanna Hunter on Wednesday called on your phone, your BlackBerry, so perhaps it was Decker. He phones Joanna Hunter and then she disappears. Neil Hunter says she left at seven but we only have his word for it. Maybe she left later, after the phone call. And if she did drive away— somehow or other, not in her car, not in a rental — and she wasn’t driving down to see the aunt, then where was she going? To meet someone else? Decker? Did he catch the train to Edinburgh because they had arranged a meeting? He gets derailed, literally, he phones her afterwards, and she goes off to meet him.”
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La Règle du Jeu
Quotes
She became a doctor because she wanted to help people. It was a terrible cliché but it was true […] If she couldn’t heal herself then she could at least heal someone else. That was why she had been attracted to Neil— he hadn’t needed healing, he was whole in himself, he didn’t suffer the pain and sadness of the world, he just got on with his life. She was a bowl, holding everything inside, he was Mars throwing his spear into the world. She didn’t have to tend to him, didn’t have to worry about him. Necessarily, that meant there were drawbacks to living with him, but who was perfect? Only the baby.
She had spent the thirty years since the murders creating a life. It wasn’t a real life, it was the simulacrum of one, but it worked. Her real life had been left behind in that other, golden field. And then she had the baby and her love for him breathed life into the simulacrum and it became genuine. Her love for the baby was immense, bigger than the entire universe. Fierce.
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Get the entire When Will There Be Good News? LitChart as a printable PDF.
Neil Hunter Quotes in When Will There Be Good News?
The When Will There Be Good News? quotes below are all either spoken by Neil Hunter or refer to Neil Hunter. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Road Trip
Quotes
“So your whole identity, basically. What if Decker’s using it? You get the driving license of a Category A prisoner with a warrant out against him, and he gets you — upstanding citizen (so-called) —credit cards, money, keys, a phone. The last person who phoned Joanna Hunter on Wednesday called on your phone, your BlackBerry, so perhaps it was Decker. He phones Joanna Hunter and then she disappears. Neil Hunter says she left at seven but we only have his word for it. Maybe she left later, after the phone call. And if she did drive away— somehow or other, not in her car, not in a rental — and she wasn’t driving down to see the aunt, then where was she going? To meet someone else? Decker? Did he catch the train to Edinburgh because they had arranged a meeting? He gets derailed, literally, he phones her afterwards, and she goes off to meet him.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
La Règle du Jeu
Quotes
She became a doctor because she wanted to help people. It was a terrible cliché but it was true […] If she couldn’t heal herself then she could at least heal someone else. That was why she had been attracted to Neil— he hadn’t needed healing, he was whole in himself, he didn’t suffer the pain and sadness of the world, he just got on with his life. She was a bowl, holding everything inside, he was Mars throwing his spear into the world. She didn’t have to tend to him, didn’t have to worry about him. Necessarily, that meant there were drawbacks to living with him, but who was perfect? Only the baby.
She had spent the thirty years since the murders creating a life. It wasn’t a real life, it was the simulacrum of one, but it worked. Her real life had been left behind in that other, golden field. And then she had the baby and her love for him breathed life into the simulacrum and it became genuine. Her love for the baby was immense, bigger than the entire universe. Fierce.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
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