A Gathering of Old Men Characters

Sure, we know what you might be thinking. Maybe it doesn't make any sense to you that, with forty characters to choose from, we decide to take a good long look at a character who doesn't seem to do...

With a name that sounds like a character on The Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire, what's not to love about Lou Dimes? If you can't really think of anything to hate about the guy, you had better believe...

Maybe with a name like Candy, you'd expect her to be sweet. But, if there's one thing that is super-obvious about Candy, it's that she's as tough as a jawbreaker. In fact, she may have actually bro...

We're going to have to put the chuckles on hold for a minute, because there's no joking about Fix Boutan. The father of Beau and Beau's brother Gil, and the undisputed head of the Boutan clan even...

Sometimes, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Other times, it does. When it comes to Gil Boutan, this is one of those other times. One of Fix Boutan's kids, and Beau's little brother, Gi...

Marshall Plantation isn't Mayberry, and you can be sure that Sheriff Mapes is no Andy Griffith. Nope—not by a long shot. We'll give Mapes credit for wanting to get to the bottom of just what went...

Like basically all of the women in A Gathering of Old Men, we aren't given a whole lot of info on Aunt Glo, and she doesn't really say much. We know that she's taking care of Snookum and his brothe...

He's not the first elderly gentleman we meet, but he definitely makes a powerful first impression, and his words should haunt you long after he's stopped speaking. We admit that he doesn't seem lik...

In a novel called A Gathering of Old Men, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there aren't that many women at all, at least not among the members of the Black community around Marshall Plantation....

The latest of the late arrivals in Gaines's novel, you can honestly say that he's the whole reason everybody else is in the mess that they're in. Charlie, in other words, is the one who actually ki...

One of the folks living near what Mat calls "Mulatto Place," Alfred "Cherry" Bello runs a small liquor and grocery store, and is a member of the Black community at Marshall who is of mixed ancestry...

The fourth voice that takes over the telling of the story that is A Gathering of Old Men, we first meet Chimley when he's fishing in the St. Charles River with his good buddy Mat and discovers that...

Pretty much all of the men who show up at Mathu's place have known each other for their entire lives, so it makes sense that they're comfortable enough with each other to carry on a pretty involved...

In a novel where the women don't seem to say much in general—with the possible exception of Beulah Jackson—old Corrine is probably the quietest of them all. When Snookum runs up to her to tell...

His nickname is probably the meanest one of the bunch—when you call somebody a coot, it's actually a way of referring to them as a pest (it's an old slang term for lice). Still, Coot's story defi...

In pretty much any group big enough, there's always that one person who kind of belongs but who also kind of doesn't. This is one of those times, and Antoine Christophe—otherwise known as "Dirty...

Kind of like Johnny Paul, Gable's got no nickname—probably because he's kept to himself for so long, living all alone in a house behind a row of trees off of the main drag. Like a lot of his pals...

A maidservant and cook who works for the Marshalls, Janey is nowhere to be found when the group has gathered out at Mathu's place. The reason for this is that Janey is absolutely terrified when she...

Like a lot of the other characters in Gaines's novel, we don't know a whole lot about Johnny Paul. We mean, he doesn't even have a cool nickname. But in what is probably the single most powerful an...

Not to be confused with Mathu, Mat is one of the first Marshall residents we meet when we happen upon him hanging out and doing some fishing with his good pal Chimley. It just so happens that Mat's...

Now, you might be used to clergy folks—people who do what Reverend Jameson does for a living—getting a whole lot of respect. Reverend Jameson, however, is getting a whole lot of… well, the ex...

With a nickname like Rooster, you'd expect Albert Jackson to do a whole lot of crowing and strutting, but he's one of the quietest characters in the novel, all things considered. Still, he gets his...

Gaines never lets us know exactly why, but he makes it pretty clear from the very beginning that Rufe has some pull among the folks there at Marshall. That's the reason, it just so happens, that Ca...

Like so many of his pals, Tucker is a character who doesn't say much for most of the novel, but—when Gaines gives him a chance to speak—he shares his own heart-breaking story.  It's all a...

Of all the characters we meet in A Gathering of Old Men, Snookum is probably the youngest one. Granted, in a novel where most of the folks you meet are well into their eighties, that probably isn't...

Sylvester J. Battley—and who could blame him for preferring a nickname like "Yank" to a name like Sylvester—used to have a reputation in his younger days for being able to break horses. If you...

An all-around good guy with a big love for television shows and a heart to match, Michael Sullivan, also known as "TV" or "Sully," has a name that is as Irish as his red hair. All of that is a deli...

For starters, we want to make it super-, extra-clear that the term "mulatto," like some of the other racist language you'll come across in Gaines's novel, is not okay. It means a person of mixed an...

He's the owner of one of the largest plantations in the fictional part of Louisiana that Gaines creates for us in his novel, but don't let all of that fool you into thinking that the Major has any...

If there's anybody even more useless than Major Jack, it's his wife Beatrice. For starters, while the Major is passed out drunk, Bea—who is seriously absent-minded and should probably be in a nur...

It might not be the easiest thing to pick up on, but Myrtle Bouchard—Miss Merle, that is—is actually connected to another plantation near the Marshall's, called Seven Oaks. This means that, lik...

When we finally roll up to the Boutan homestead with Sully and Gil, we meet—very briefly—a good handful of characters, including Doucette, Beau's widow, and Beau's kid (called "Tee Beau," meani...

Super-short on brains and extra-long on blind and irrational racist hate, Luke Will's buddies Alcee, Henry, Sharp, and Leroy (the youngest one of the bunch) are about as worthless as worthless gets...

As up-close and personal as Gaines wants us to get with all of the ugliness he's showing us, he does occasionally let us off fairly easy. We might, for example, spend a little time inside the mind...

Mapes isn't alone, but he may as well be. His deputies—Griffin, Hilly, and Russell—sure don't seem to be around much, and Griffin is pretty much just as racist as Luke and his buddies. Griffin...

Cal is the other half of the unstoppable LSU football duo Salt and Pepper. Gil is the salt, and Cal is the pepper. We admit, it's kind of a messed up way of referring to a couple of athletes who ju...

You can make the argument that there wouldn't be a novel if there was no Beau Boutan. Of course, there's already no Beau Boutan from the very beginning of the novel, because Beau Boutan is… dead....

No, we're not talking about the dude on Gilligan's Island who could make a metal detector out of a set of coconuts, but this guy is just as cool. We don't know his name. We don't know if he's got a...