Meet the Cast
John "Johnny" Grimes
The Birthday BoyHeeere's Johnny! John's a fourteen-year-old African-American kid who lives in Harlem with his parents, brother, and two sisters. They're poor, they all work hard, and they live unde...
Deacon Gabriel Grimes
FatherGabriel Grimes shows up in the novel first as a mad Daddy, a hard-working preacher who rules his family with an iron fist. The image of Gabriel as someone who rules with a double-edged sword,...
Elizabeth Grimes
Stuck in the Middle Elizabeth Grimes is Gabriel's wife, and John, Roy, Sarah and Ruth's mother. She's a friend and sister-in-law to Florence, Gabriel's brother. Since most of these characters have...
Aunt Florence
Can't Live With 'EmFlorence, Gabriel's sister, is a real tough cookie. She doesn't put up with any nonsense and is open about her objections to her brother's authoritarian ways. Unfortunately, thou...
Deborah Grimes
Boo! There are a couple of ghostly characters haunting this novel, and Deborah is one of them. She's long dead before the night in 1935 when it all goes down. But she is alive and well in the memor...
Harlem Family
Elizabeth and Gabriel's other children don't play as big a part in the novel as John. Roy Grimes, their oldest child, is everything that John isn't. Where John is meek and mild, Roy is wild and rud...
Esther
Esther's the girl who works with Gabriel and who ends up pregnant with his child. She's sort of a classic lost soul who doesn't go to church and goes out with all kinds of men. When Gabriel invites...
Royal
Esther's son, Royal, is the unrecognized son of Gabriel. He grows up without a mother or father (Esther dies in childbirth and Gabriel, as we said, doesn't recognize him as his son) and soon falls...
Northern Men
For both Florence and Elizabeth, moving north means L-O-V-E. Frank, Florence's husband, turns out to be a true disappointment. He wastes all their money and finally leaves her before he dies in Fra...
Church Members
The Temple of the Fire Baptized, in Harlem, is full of interesting characters. Father James, the stern leader, doesn't show up for the Saturday service where John is saved, but he is there when it'...