Choke characters

Appears from the start

A medical-school dropout in his twenties who supports his mother’s institutional care through an elaborate confidence scheme: he pretends to choke in restaurants, lets a stranger save him, and then cultivates the rescuer’s lasting sense of responsibility. He works at a colonial theme park and attends meetings for sexual compulsives, although he treats recovery as another setting in which to pursue women. His narration is shaped by resentment toward his mother, anxiety about who he is, and a strong need to make other people feel responsible for him.

First appears in chapter 4

Victor’s closest friend, coworker, and fellow participant in a sexual-compulsion recovery program. Denny is trying more sincerely than Victor to stop acting on his compulsions. He begins gathering stones as a practical outlet for the time and energy his old habits consumed.

Also known as Mrs. Mancini

First appears in chapter 5

Victor’s elderly mother, now living in a care facility with severe memory loss. In his childhood she was an erratic, fiercely anti-authoritarian presence who repeatedly disrupted his attempts at an ordinary home life. During Victor’s visits she often mistakes him for people from her past, leaving him to search her fragmented memories for answers about himself.

First appears in chapter 16

A young woman Victor meets at his mother’s care facility and initially understands to be part of the medical staff. She takes an unusual interest in Ida’s history and in Victor’s desire to learn what his mother can no longer explain clearly.

Also known as Charlie

First appears in chapter 10

The supervisor at the colonial reenactment park where Victor and Denny work. He insists that employees remain within the park’s version of eighteenth-century life and disciplines anyone who breaks character or introduces modern behavior into the performance.

First appears in chapter 20

A woman Victor knows through the same world of compulsive sexual behavior that he inhabits. Their encounters show how readily he turns supposed recovery spaces and personal disclosures into opportunities to repeat the pattern he claims to be treating.