The Fourth State of Matter

Christopher Goertz, a 47-year-old professor, is Jo Ann Beard’s closest colleague who works alongside her at the space-physics monthly. In addition to being a professor, Goertz is also an editor, international speaker, and “head of a theoretical-plasma-physics team made up of graduate students and research scientists” (Paragraph 30). The essay describes him as “tall,” “lanky,” “white-haired,” “hip in a professorial, cardigan/jeans kind of way” (Paragraph 23), married, and a father to a daughter and a son. Goertz and Beard share an ambiguous but seemingly close relationship, as Beard openly discusses her personal issues with only him and he feels compelled to intervene and give advice. Notably, he suggests that she should have her dog euthanized, despite her hesitancy and emotional attachment. Goertz is one of Gang Lu’s victims.

For much of the essay, Beard’s soon-to-be ex-husband haunts the essay through an impending divorce, boxes stored in the spare bedroom, which he has yet to move to his new apartment, games of phone calls and series of voicemails, etc. Beard refers to him early on and repeatedly as “the vanished husband” (Paragraph 6). His role is initially restricted to phone calls and voicemails, though his absence is felt heavily in Beard’s home threads, representing something she struggles to confront and cope with. Ultimately, he arrives at Beard’s home unannounced and embraces her at the door. He is the last person to leave Beard’s home in the wake of watching the news coverage of the shooting. His role in her life is physically absent until the shooting, at which point he assumes a husband-like role so Beard is not alone during the unfolding of the news story.

Three central figures in this essay are Beard’s unnamed dogs: a collie, a labrador, and a mutt. The collie particularly features prominently in the essay given her aged and deteriorating state. The other dogs are less of a presence in the narrative, notably taking up the spare room once the squirrels are gone instead of sleeping next to Beard and the collie downstairs. Her looming death aids in foreshadowing the deaths of Beard’s colleagues at the University of Iowa. The collie’s dire state also adds to the numerous stressors that Beard is simultaneously juggling in the narrative leading up to the shooting. In the moments after the shooting, Beard and the collie are together in the bathroom as she confronts the reality of the unfolding events. She reenters the house and her life with the collie, a needed, constant figure in Beard’s life despite her ailing condition. After everyone leaves Beard’s house at the end of the story, Beard comes to rely on the collie’s bathroom breaks in the night, flipping their dependency and even waking the collie for a much-needed outdoor break from reality.

In contrast to the domesticated dogs, Beard struggles with an infestation of squirrels, wild and unwanted, living in the upstairs spare bedroom of her home for the first half of the essay. Even after their extraction by her friend Caroline, the squirrels recur throughout the essay, disturbing her sleep and later haunting her with their absence. They were a consistency in her life, despite their chaotic nature. Though they were essentially pests, their presence in the place of her husband and in the background of her many conflicts nevertheless functioned as a constant. Their absence is particularly noted after the events of the shooting, in the silence of Beard’s house. Suddenly, multiple constants in her life have become absent. The squirrels also produce a bit of comic relief in the narrative, particularly when Beard speaks to Caroline about their activity.

Gang Lu is a doctoral student from China at the University of Iowa working under Christopher Goertz and Robert Smith. Lu has become disgruntled: “He’s sick of physics and sick of the buffoons who practice it” (Paragraph 80). Beard uses flat, bleak language to describe Lu’s emotions, suggesting an emptiness in him. Through his activity on the shooting range, Beard analyzes the cultural and political infrastructure of the US that contextualizes the shooting. Lu is easily able to practice shooting moving targets in the evenings without being stopped or suspected. The third-person narrator also reports that he imagines himself like Clint Eastwood. Beard uses this Hollywood icon to question the glamorization of violence in American culture and explore its impact on people such as Lu and others who teach him at shooting ranges.

He becomes so dissatisfied that he plans a mass shooting and kills much of the space-physics department at the University of Iowa. Lu ends up taking his own life using the same weapon with which he slays his colleagues.

Caroline is one of Jo Ann Beard’s friends who comes to help Beard remove squirrels that have been inhabiting her home’s upstairs spare bedroom. The essay describes Caroline as “an ex-beauty queen” (Paragraph 41). While visiting Beard, Caroline also brings to light the toxic relationship Beard has with her “vanished husband,” given his borderline harassing phone calls and the dire state to which her collie has deteriorated (Paragraph 6). Caroline and Beard also have a conversation that provides comic relief in the otherwise heavy narrative.

Robert (Bob) Smith is Chris’s pipe-smoking best friend at the University of Iowa and research collaborator. Smith is also on the “theoretical-plasma-physics team made up of graduate students and research scientists” (Paragraph 30). Smith is one of Gang Lu’s victims.

Linhua Shan is another Chinese graduate student in the same department as Gang Lu, working with Christopher Goertz and Robert Smith. He appears to have become the favored student of the two, which exacerbates Gang Lu’s jealousy. Shan is another victim of Gang Lu’s violent rampage.

Ursula Goertz is Christopher Goertz’s mother who is visiting from Germany. The essay describes her as “a robust woman of eighty who is depressed and hoping to be cheered up” (Paragraph 87). During the grief of losing her son, Ursula ultimately returns to Germany and takes her own life, which, Jo Ann Beard argues, makes Ursula another one of Lu’s victims, if indirectly.

Dwight Nicholson is the department chair for the space-physics department at the University of Iowa. Nicholson is also one of Lu’s victims.

Anne Cleary, or T. Anne Cleary, was an administrator for the space-physics department at the University of Iowa. Cleary was one of Lu’s victims.

Miya Rodolfo-Sioson was “the receptionist, a young student working as a temp” (Paragraph 101) in the space-physics department at the University of Iowa. Rodolfo-Sioson was one of Gang Lu’s victims but survived the attack, paralyzed from the neck down.