The Life of Chuck characters

Appears from the start

A middle-school teacher trying to preserve ordinary routines as the natural and technological systems around him fail. Marty is separated from his wife Felicia but still turns to her when the scale of the ending becomes impossible to face alone.

Appears from the start

Marty Anderson's former wife, who shares his alarm at the world's accelerating collapse. Their old intimacy survives the end of their marriage and gives both of them someone with whom to witness events they cannot prevent.

Also known as Chuck

Appears from the start

An apparently ordinary accountant whose face suddenly appears on billboards and television messages thanking him for thirty-nine years. Marty and Felicia do not know him, yet the unexplained celebration of his life spreads as their world comes apart.

First appears in chapter 2

A young woman passing through Boston after an unsuccessful job interview. Janice stops when a street drummer's rhythm and Chuck's unexpected dancing turn a discouraging day into a spontaneous public performance.

First appears in chapter 2

A boy performing percussion on the streets of Boston. Jared's improvised beat draws Chuck out of the crowd and supplies the music for a dance that briefly brings strangers together.

First appears in chapter 3

Chuck's grandmother and an enthusiastic dancer. Sarah raises him after the loss of his parents, fills the Krantz home with music and teaches him the steps that become one of his deepest private joys.

First appears in chapter 3

Chuck's grandfather, an accountant who takes the orphaned boy into his home with Sarah. Albie encourages a practical career and firmly forbids Chuck from entering the locked cupola at the top of the house, a room he treats with genuine fear.