Ed Coleman

Ed Coleman is the bereaved father of Peggy and the father-in-law of Ray Garrett, whom he blames for Peggy’s suicide. In Patricia Highsmith’s Those Who Walk Away, Ed’s attempts to kill Ray do not bring the conflict to a decisive end. Their violence becomes part of a drawn-out, unresolved bond in which each man remains caught in the other’s orbit.

Identity and Loss

Ed’s defining circumstance is the death of his only child, Peggy, by suicide. He directs his blame toward Ray, Peggy’s husband, and tries to murder him in Rome. The novel establishes this accusation as the immediate source of their conflict; it does not offer further details about Ed’s life or about the events leading to Peggy’s death.

From Rome to Venice

Rather than flee after the attempt in Rome, Ray follows Ed to Venice, where Ed is spending the winter with his girlfriend, Inez. The pursuit carries their confrontation into a new setting without loosening its grip: the two men are described as linked through their hatred as well as through the family tragedy that brought them together.

Ed later gives Ray a lift in a motorboat and pushes him overboard in the middle of the lagoon. Ray survives, but pretends to be dead and takes on a false name and another identity. Ed’s attempt thus produces neither a confirmed killing nor a clean break. Ray moves through Venice under assumed identity, experiencing freedom alongside emptiness, while the threat between the men remains unresolved.

An Unfinished Conflict

The novel offers no clear resolution to Ed and Ray’s antagonism. Its ending suggests, at most, a resigned recognition that the two are condemned to haunt one another. Ed’s repeated attempts at violence therefore do not close the story’s central conflict; they prolong a connection formed by bereavement, accusation, and mutual entanglement.

Narrative Significance

The book uses Ed’s pursuit of Ray to unsettle the expectations of crime fiction. Although the story repeatedly approaches murder, it turns instead toward failed attempts, suspended consequences, and the dragging-on of ordinary time. Ed’s violence is part of that structure: it changes Ray’s circumstances, but cannot produce a final resolution. Their continuing attachment gives the novel’s crime plot its distinctive inertia and leaves its central relationship open-ended.