Lee Tourneau is a fictional character from the novel Horns by Joe Hill. There are some differences between the character from the book and the movie in some ways. In the book, he is not an attorney but an adviser and aide to a Congressman who is part of the Conservative Christian right, however, the congressman is not overly zealous. He appears to be a good friend to Merrin Williams and best friend for Ig Perrish. However, his friendship with Ig allows Lee to covet Merrin and to study Ig regarding his behavior trying to get some insight about what Merrin loves about him and also to manipulate both of them.He is introduced while at the church that the Perrish family goes to and notices Merrin who is signaling Ig. Later, he shows up at the Foundary which is a place some of the kids hang out at times, with Glenna, Ig, Terry, and Eric Hannity when Eric has a box of cherry bombs and they start to blow things up including a frozen turkey from Mrs Perrish's freezer. Eric has one left and challenges all of them that if they can take a shopping cart and ride it on the Evel Kenivel trail naked and Ig takes him up on it and completes the challenge, however almost drowns until Lee saves him by pulling him out. In actuality, Lee kicks him out of the way because there was a snake near Ig's body and Lee is deathly afraid of snakes which he confesses to Ig after a very bad beating.During a flashback, the friendship of Ig and Lee is explained where Ig believes Lee is a poor kid with a drug addicted mother and has no money for other things such as CDs. He approaches Ig at his house selling magazines for some christian organization drive and there is a wonder if as far back as then if Lee wasn't setting the stage to conquer Merrin even at that point by getting close to Ig. He notices Merrin's cross that has a broken chain and Lee offers to fix it and give it back to her and expresses his interest in Merrin and Ig gives it to him because he believes he owes him this debt for saving him. Later on, Ig and Lee are at Ig's swimming in the pool and Ig wants the cross back and trades it for the cherry bomb he won from Eric Hannity, so the exchange is made. That Sunday, Ig gives Merrin her necklace and they start talking and find out how much they have in common. Both are involved in a blood drive at the church when Terry, Ig's brother, races in there to tell him that Lee has been seriously injured because of the cherry bomb. The bomb damages his eye, which becomes milky and has impaired vision, though his other eye is unimpaired. Lee is also revealed to be a juvenile delinquent, having stolen and sold various items, perhaps as a way of venting his seemingly groundless hatred of his mother. Ig feels not only that he may be responsible for Lee's accident.In the book, it is also revealed of some things that happened in his childhood. In a flashback, Lee remembers an experience from his childhood in which he attempted to feed and befriend a stray cat, only to be swatted at, causing him to fall from a fence and hit his head; he is impaled in the head by the spike of a pitchfork and receives serious brain damage; he undergoes a hallucination in which he perceives things as God would, and murders the cat. When he returns, his mother perceives nothing wrong, not investigating the cause of but rather only reprimanding him for his blood stained pillow cases. It appears that from this point in time, his personality is changed and he has psychopathic thoughts. He refers to the accident as the time he fixed the moon. His has a deep hatred for his mother and when she has dementia, he uses this as an opportunity to torture her, while pretending to be a loving, caring son whenever anyone visits. Ultimately she dies, and he uses her death as an excuse to become close to Merrin.It is also discovered that Lee has believed that Merrin has been sending him signals and giving him signs that she wants to be with him instead of Ig and is just waiting until Ig leaves for England with Amnesty International. Every thing Merrin does whether it is a friendly hug, comforting behavior, he sees as a come on by Merrin, which is not what she meant at all and he realizes that right before he rapes and kills her and then has a very negative view on Merrin, but takes and wears her cross which protects him from the power of the horns.Lee is an anti social personality and sociopath with no tolerance for anything he deems as unclean which is a wide variety of behaviors and actions. Show less «