Wood Mountain Character Analysis

Wood Mountain is a boxer who trains with Lloyd Barnes. Throughout the novel, he has feelings for Patrice, which puts him in conflict with Barnes, who also has feelings for her. After one of Wood Mountain’s fights in Fargo is canceled, instead of going home, he travels to Minneapolis to try and make sure that Patrice is doing okay while she’s searching for Vera, showing that he genuinely cares for Patrice and is willing to go out of his way to try and be there for others. In Minneapolis, he finds Patrice working at Log Jam 26, and he helps engineer her escape. The two of them then take Vera’s baby back home. Wood Mountain becomes a kind of surrogate parent to the baby, and he suggests naming him Archille, after his father—at least temporarily, until Vera returns. He and Patrice begin a romantic relationship at that time, too. But when Vera returns, it becomes clear, at least to Patrice, that Wood Mountain and Vera make a better match. Patrice gives Wood Mountain her blessing when he tells her that he and Vera would like to be a couple. Wood Mountain also fights against Joe Wobble in a boxing match that serves as a fundraiser for the delegation that travels to Washington, D.C., to testify against the Termination Bill.