Luke Chandler is the active, dynamic protagonist of A Painted House. At seven years old, Luke is a protagonist who seeks to make sense of the difficult and complicated world of the adults around him. Luke is, in many ways, a typical child: he’s obsessed with baseball and idolizes the Cardinals’ player Stan Musial; he’s curious about women but doesn’t understand the root of that curiosity; and he longs to leave the cotton fields, and watch movies and play ball with his friends in Black Oak. Luke, though, is also a highly earnest and sensitive child who is attuned to the difficulties of the adults in his life. Early in the narrative, Luke reflects on his uncle’s time in Korea: “What if he didn’t come home? It was a question I tortured myself with every night. I thought about him dying until I cried. I didn’t want his bed. I didn’t want his room” (55). Luke is so deeply affected by Ricky’s absence, and by the possibility of Ricky’s death, that even being in contact with Ricky’s physical possessions causes him to spiral with anxiety.

The fact that Luke is so carefully connected to the worries of the adults on the farm allows him to be capable of reasoning and decision-making that, at times, feel beyond his years.