Meet the Cast
Jim Dixon
The HeroDespite his flaws, it's hard not to like good ol' Jim Dixon. After all, who among us would really want to spend an entire weekend hanging out with Professor Welch and singing medieval songs...
Margaret Peel
Margaret Peel, "small, thin, and bespectacled" (2.1), might be the saddest character in this book, and definitely one of the most complicated. She's a faculty member in the History Department, a se...
Christine Callaghan
Christine's the beautiful object of our hero's attention. Although she seems out of his league to him at first, he gradually gets to know her and sees that she's not as unattainable as he thought....
Professor Welch
Professor Welch, "tall and weedy with limp-looking hair," (1.7) is a bumbling, foolish guy who barely ever seems to know what's going on around him. The term "absent-minded professor" could have be...
Bertrand Welch
No one incites more hatred in Jim than Professor Welch's son, Bertrand. If Professor Welch is Jim's nemesis, then Bertrand is his arch-nemesis. He's an obnoxious, pompous braggart who fancies himse...
Julius Gore-Urquhart
Finally! We've been waiting to run into someone with one of those British aristocratic hyphenated names. Christine's Uncle Julius, a wealthy arts patron, is a fairly soft-spoken man, but we realize...
Minor Characters
Bill AtkinsonBill is Jim's co-conspirator. He and Jim share the same contempt for people in general, and Bill can be called upon to help Jim out by placing a bogus phone call or faking a fainting s...