Adam Farmer
The novel’s teenage protagonist narrates his bike ride from his home to Rutterburg, where his father is. The novel also features tape transcriptions of Adam talking to a man he calls Brint. Most of what the reader learns about Adam is conveyed via flashbacks. While talking with Brint, Adam struggles to remember something unclear about his past. From Adam’s flashbacks and narration during the bike ride, readers learn that he was not always named Adam Farmer. One unique quality about Adam is that despite the unreliable qualities of his narration, he is very aware of his own faults such as his numerous fears and awkwardness. His birth name is Paul Delmonte. He serves as a symbol of identity confusion.
Brint
At first glance Brint is merely a psychiatrist who helps Adam through his talk therapy. In the transcriptions of the tapes, on which his name is “T” instead of Brint, he often asks leading questions and Adam mentions aloud that he does not seem like a doctor. He is sort of a grey character in that his motivations and affiliations are unclear both to Adam and to the reader. The final transcript in the “file” of which the book seems to consist suggests that Brint’s final recommendation about talking to Adam could be to “terminate” him. Similarities between Brint and Mr. Grey, another fairly grey character, abound.
Mr. Grey
aka.: Thompson, #2222. He is described both as a sinister, plain, grey/nothing man and as a silly guy someone can prank. His failure to protect the Farmer family and his prank-ability serve as a sort of critique of government workers; he has so much power, but he may not be the best person for the job. On the other hand, Mr. Grey is questionably dangerous. It is eventually revealed that Brint is interviewing Adam with the intention of getting information about him, some of this information is meant to determine is Mr. Grey is directly responsible for the end the Farmer family meets. It is suggested that he may not have merely failed to protect them, but orchestrated their whole downfall. Mr. Grey, like Brint, is a very mysterious character about whom nearly nothing is ever revealed.
David Farmer
Adam’s dad seems like a great father, but mostly he seems boring. As Adam grows older, he becomes more and more suspicious of strange things that his parents do. When it is eventually revealed that David was formerly Anthony Delmonte, more about his personality is also revealed. Anthony was a political journalist who testified against a mafia-like organization and was forced to go into hiding to protect his life and the safety of his family. David is brave and calm, contrasting with Adam’s fear and nervousness. David Farmer represents a good American citizen who does good things for the government and does what he is told. He is trusting and kind and wants to protect his family.
Louise Farmer
Adam’s mother is someone whom Adam describes as sad. She is sad that her family had to change their names and move to a new place. She is also nervous, like Adam. She worries about “Never Knows”. However, she is in some ways even stronger than Adam’s father. She does not listen to everything the government tells her to do and is angry that they have has to relocate, whereas David is more passive. Louise is very religious, she weekly calls her sister who is a nun and attends services. She represents a religious figure who is willing to trust in god, but who is also strong enough to not accept any person or government playing god and dictating their lives.
Amy Hertz
Adam’s girlfriend from Monument is a fun, quirky prankster. She represents a foil to Adam. Adam loves her very much and struggles each day with not telling her too much about his recently discovered past. When Adam is riding his bike to see his father in Rutterburg, he thinks about calling her a lot. He even makes several attempts to do so, one of the breaks in narration which foreshadow the true circumstances of the bike ride and the reality of Adam’s present day situation.
The Man Adam Keeps Calling
Every time Adam dials Amy’s number while he is on his bike ride, he connects with a surly man. The guy has never heard of Amy or her family and Adam does not recognize her voice. He differs significantly from the other characters Adam meets on his bike ride, because he does not seem to want to interact with Adam. Whereas others he encounters almost seem to stare at him and talk to him, the man Adam keeps calling him probably does not live in the mental hospital with Adam, and could be connected to Cormier himself.
Whipper
Friends with Dobbie and Lewis. Adam meets them in Carver and they bully him. They eventually knock him down into a ditch by the side of the road he is riding along. They represent “wise guys” or bullies all over the world. Their typical-ness is reinforced by their typical teenage appearance, although Whipper has an odd scar on his forehead.
Junior Varney
Junior Varney has a bad relationship with his mother, he is rude, and he is a thief. Adam meets him when he steals his bike. As a narrative device, Junior forces Adam to face some of his fears Junior himself represents those fears because he steals Adam’s bike, something he was paranoid about for the whole journey.
Edna
Arnold’s wife who recently had a stroke and does not support Arnold’s choice to help Adam. She is mean to Arnold, demanding he drive very slowly in the car to her doctor because she recently had a stroke and is very paranoid and likes to move slowly. She does not like or trust Adam. Arnold says several times that she is not herself anymore. She could represent the patients where Adam lives because she isn’t herself and she needs help to do anything because she is sick. Arnold’s support and forgiveness of her behavior could be an example to readers to forgive others when they are not at their best selves.
Arnold
The male counterpart of the elderly couple that give Adam a ride in their car after rescuing him from the ditch which he and his bike fell into. He is described as being very kind. He parallels Dr. Dupont because he is taking care of his wife Edna who he says is “not herself” and has had a stroke, much in the same way that Dr. Dupont helps his patients who are not themselves, such as Adam.
Dr. Dupont
He a doctor at the mental hospital Adam lives in. He is kind and has a nice voice. He appears as himself at the end of the bike ride and throughout the walk Adam takes through the hospital. Dr. Dupont represents reality. He is black and white (white hair, black mustache) and he is real. Unlike the rest of the narrative which is ambiguous and in shades of grey, Dupont is truly a nice guy and he bridges the gaps in Adam’s mind between reality and imagination by existing in both the bike reality and the hospital reality as himself.
Mr. Harvester
Adam first encounters him at a gas station where he gives him a map and warns him not to trust anyone. He later shows up in the mental hospital where his name is mentioned. He calls Adam Skipper and has veins like a map. He is paranoid about identity crimes and lack of privacy. Adam becomes uncomfortable after he first meets him and is even more nervous. His narrative function is in part to foreshadow to the reader that not all is as it seems and that identities as well as privacy can lack truth or substance.
Luke
Adam meets him where he works at a diner. He is nice to Adam and gives him extra servings. He also tells off Whipper, Dobbie, and Lewis. He is on his phone the entire time Adam is in the restaurant. He is later seen in the hospital as a switchboard operator who sometimes works as kitchen staff. He is very important because though it does not make sense at first that each time Adam calls Amy he connects to the same male operator, it does make sense if Adam is actually calling from the hospital and Luke is the operator.
Arthur Hayes
A man Adam meets in Hookset who is obese, sweaty, and has a southern accent. He lives in an upper apartment and watches the town out from his balcony. Oddly, Adam, who Arthur calls “Honey” describes the balcony as being like a cage. Adam feels sorry for him because he is ordered around by another man inside of the apartment, but when he meets him later in the hospital, Adam says that the way he is always watching and calling him “Honey” is eerie.
