"Trisha did not cry. Not then. At that moment she was too scared to cry. Something watching her. Something" |
Patricia "Trisha" McFarland (born 1989) is the main protagonist of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Stephen King's 41st book. Trisha is constantly described as "nine (and big for her age)", is a Boston resident prior to her parents' divorce, and is a big fan of the Boston Red Sox.
After her parents' divorce, she and her older brother, Pete (13), live with their mother Quilla McFarland (nee Andersen). She constantly tries to appease the two with gifts and trips, but Pete stays bitterly pessimistic about the situation. While on a hike on the Appalachian Mountains, Trisha tries to get away from the two's constant fighting and takes a bathroom break but quickly gets lost in the woods, and has to fend for herself with a backpack equipped with only a Gameboy, a Walkman, a hard boiled egg, a tuna sandwich, two twinkies, a liter of Surge, and a poncho.
Trisha's only connection to the human world is her Walkman, where she finds comfort in a human voice other than her own. Her sanity and sense of reality begins to slip as she also finds comfort in imagining that her favorite baseball player, Tom Gordon (who was the real pitcher for the Boston Red Sox from 1996–99) is there, guiding her.