The Accidental Tourist characters

Appears from the start

A Baltimore writer who produces practical guidebooks for business travelers who would rather feel at home. Methodical, reserved, and uncomfortable with disruption, he tries to manage grief through routines. His marriage is already strained by the death of his son when his wife announces that she wants to separate.

Appears from the start

Macon's wife, also grieving the violent death of their son, Ethan. She no longer believes that Macon's inward, orderly way of living leaves room for her and tells him she wants to live apart.

Appears from the start

The twelve-year-old son of Macon and Sarah, killed before the novel begins during a robbery at a restaurant. His absence shapes both parents' grief and the collapse of the life they had shared.

First appears in chapter 2

The Learys' Welsh corgi. Once closely attached to Ethan, he becomes increasingly difficult and sometimes aggressive after the boy's death, making Macon's attempt to keep an orderly household harder.

First appears in chapter 4

Macon's unmarried sister, who keeps house for her brothers in the old Leary home. She shares the family's fondness for private systems and familiar habits, but is more capable than her domestic role initially suggests.

First appears in chapter 4

One of Macon's brothers, living with Rose and Charles in the Leary family home. Like his siblings, he prefers predictable routines, family shorthand, and arrangements that outsiders find confusing.

First appears in chapter 4

Macon's other brother and another resident of the family home. He participates in the siblings' elaborate household systems and their retreat into the habits they learned together.

First appears in chapter 5

Macon's publisher, an energetic and sociable man whose manner contrasts with the Learys' reserve. He values Macon's guidebooks and becomes personally interested in Rose as he spends more time around the family.

First appears in chapter 5

A talkative, unconventional employee at the animal hospital where Macon boards Edward. She offers to train the dog and pursues contact with Macon with a directness that unsettles his preference for distance and routine.

First appears in chapter 10

Muriel's young son, a thin and frequently unwell child toward whom she is fiercely protective. His needs are part of the complicated, untidy family life into which Muriel gradually draws Macon.