Bucky Duvalle and his friends sexually assaulted and attempted to rape Patrice in a car the summer before the events of the novel take place. It could have been even worse, Patrice thinks, but she managed to escape and then swim to her uncle, Thomas’s, boat in the middle of the lake. After the assault, Bucky is struck by an illness that contorts his mouth and then travels down his side. Patrice feels that she did it to him—that her anger left her body and struck the side of Bucky’s face. Bucky, however, thinks that Zhaanat, Patrice’s mother, put a curse on him. When he asks her to lift the curse, though, she tells him that what happened is a result of his own actions and that he did it to himself.
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Bucky Duvalle Character Timeline in The Night Watchman
The timeline below shows where the character Bucky Duvalle appears in The Night Watchman. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Lard on Bread
...a job. And she’s above the mess that happened when she accepted a ride from Bucky Duvalle and his friends when they lied about what she had done. And Patrice is...
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Perfume
...hasn’t heard anything about it. After a while, Doris asks her what she thinks of Bucky Duvalle, and to Patrice, it’s like someone is poking an electric wire into her brain....
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Doris tells Patrice that her brother is friends with Bucky. Patrice understands then that Doris’s brother was one of the boys in the car with...
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The Night Watch
...Paranteau into a blanket and cover him with bark. Families begin to arrive. LaBatte weeps. Bucky shows up as well. He asks Zhaanat to take the curse off of him. She...
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Night Bird
Patrice had been in school with Bucky since first grade. The summer before, when she got in the car, he had been...
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When Bucky’s mouth twisted and then the same illness spread down his side, Patrice knew she herself...
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