Meet the Cast
Oskar Schell
Oskar Schell is our very precocious, smart-as-a-whip nine-year-old narrator and protagonist. He's interested in almost everything, and is forever writing letters to famous people to share his ideas...
Grandma
The Last Little EnvelopeOskar's grandmother is nurturing and devoted to Oskar. She misses her son terribly and knows the depth of Oskar's pain. She's always knitting him scarves and mittens (white,...
Grandpa (Thomas Schell, Sr. aka The Renter)
Should He Stay Or Should He Go?Grandpa is our third narrator, and we get to know him through Oskar's descriptions and a series of letters he's written in his notebook but never sent. Born Thomas Sc...
Mom
Oskar's Mom is a busy attorney who's somewhat awkwardly trying to fill the role left by his father, tucking him in at night, offering to read to him and check the New York Times for mistakes. She a...
Mr. A. R. Black
Basic BlackOskar meets tons of people with the last name Black over the course of the novel. We don't even get to learn the first name of the one we get to know the most. Just his initials. So we'l...
Abby and William Black
Back in BlackAbby is the second Black. She lives in "the narrowest house in New York" (5.12), which also used to be the home of the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Oskar says that Abby is "beautiful"...
Dad (Thomas Schell)
Schell ShockedOskar's Dad was a jeweler who always tried to encourage his son to do something other than the jewelry business. Dad would tell Oskar he "was too smart for retail" (1.19) and was larg...
Minor Characters
Other Citizens of New YorkNew York City was home to a little over 8 million people in 2003. If Oskar met them all, we'd have to change the title to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Impossibl...