Rabbit Redux characters

Also known as Rabbit

Appears from the start

A thirty-six-year-old former high-school basketball star living in Brewer, Pennsylvania. Harry now works as a linotype operator, shares his childhood house with Janice and their son, and has settled into a life that feels smaller than the one he once fled. He is passive, restless, politically conservative, and often more attentive to public events than to the people closest to him.

Appears from the start

Harry's wife, who works at Springer Motors, the car dealership owned by her family. Their marriage has survived separation and the death of their infant daughter, but remains burdened by resentment and poor communication. At the opening she is involved with a colleague and is preparing to leave Harry.

Appears from the start

Harry and Janice's thirteen-year-old son. Nelson is watchful, unhappy, and caught between parents who repeatedly make him responsible for their emotions. He wants his mother's return but is also drawn to the unconventional people Harry brings into the house.

Appears from the start

Janice's colleague at Springer Motors and her lover. Charlie is a Greek-American salesman whose confidence and attention offer Janice an alternative to Harry's detachment. His relationship with her is serious, though constrained by the life and family she has not fully left.

Appears from the start

Harry's ailing mother, whose Parkinson's disease has made her increasingly dependent on her husband. She remains emotionally possessive of Harry and hostile toward Janice, preserving old family tensions even as her health fails.

Appears from the start

Harry's father, an aging printer who cares for his sick wife and resents the disorder Harry has made of family life. His anger is sharpened by exhaustion and by his belief that Harry repeatedly leaves others to bear the consequences of his choices.

First appears in chapter 2

A teenage runaway from a prosperous Connecticut family whom Harry meets after Janice leaves. Jill is intelligent and emotionally vulnerable, and her distance from her former life makes Harry's nearly empty house seem like temporary refuge. She becomes attached to Harry while also befriending Nelson.

First appears in chapter 3

A young Black veteran and radical speaker whom Jill brings into Harry's household. Skeeter is charismatic, confrontational, and highly informed, turning the house into a place of political argument and forcing Harry to confront views of race, war, and American power that he habitually resists.

Appears from the start

Harry's neighbor and the wife of Ollie Fosnacht. Peggy is socially curious, alert to the neighborhood's gossip, and willing to provide companionship when Harry's household and marriage are breaking apart.

Appears from the start

Peggy's husband and one of Harry's neighbors. Ollie shares the local unease about the strangers living in Harry's house, and his domestic life forms an uneasy parallel to Harry and Janice's marriage.

First appears in chapter 4

Harry's younger sister, who has made an independent life far from Brewer. Mim returns during the family crisis with a sharper understanding of their parents and of Harry's tendency to treat his own desires as circumstances imposed on him.