Jackson Character Analysis

In “Gaps in the Hickory,” Jackson is Izzy and Delores’s son, Jeanie’s husband, and Carter and Lucy’s father. When he was young, his father Denver left the family. Jackson was told that Denver ran off with another woman. In reality, Denver was a transgender woman who now lives in New Orleans and goes by Delores. When Izzy found out about her spouse’s gender identity, she kept it a secret and convinced Delores to go to New Orleans, where she would be safer and more accepted. Some years before the story’s present, Jackson went to New Orleans to see his father and accidentally found out about that his father was a transgender woman. Unable to cope with his shock and unable to accept his father as Delores, Jackson became bitter, violent, and bigoted. In the story’s present, he belongs to the local KKK group and tries to involve Carter in it too. His family is afraid of him and his increasingly unhinged behavior. Before Izzy died, she warned Jeanie that Jackson would never accept his son Carter’s transgender identity and would likely hurt Carter when he finds out, and it’s for this reason that Izzy pleads with Jeanie to take Carter to live with Delores in New Orleans before it’s too late.