Paperboy Characters

Not a Regular Kid The thing about Victor is that he looks like a normal kid from the outside. He has a normal family and lives in a normal house and has normal all-American pastimes like playing ba...

Mother FigureMam is the black woman who works for Victor's parents, but she's more of a mother figure to him than a babysitter. She's always there to support and love him, and he grows up thinking...

I Can Show You the World When Victor first encounters Mr. Spiro on the paper route, he thinks he's one weird dude. After all, Mr. Spiro talks in rambling monologues with lots of big words and liter...

Up to No Good From day one, Mam tells Victor to stay far away from the likes of Ara T: Mam hardly ever talked down about anyone but she never had anything good to say about Ara T. I asked her once...

Poor Mrs. Worthington cuts a pretty tragic figure in Paperboy. When Victor first sees her, he's struck by how beautiful she is and is excited to talk to her more on his paper route. But as he obser...

Victor has always been close to his father—or, closer than he is to his mother, at least. So when he learns that his father isn't his real biological dad, Victor is obviously disturbed. He doesn'...

Rat is Victor's best friend and the one who hooks him up with the paper route gig for the month that he's away on vacation. Even though Rat knows Victor stutters, he doesn't make a big deal out of...

When Victor goes on his paper route, he's struck by the sight of a boy in one of the houses who is constantly glued to the TV… with the sound is off. Victor judges the kid at first and assumes th...

Big Sack is a large man who comes from the same hometown as Mam. He's a kind, gentle soul who does odd jobs for people around town—like mowing the Vollmers' lawn—and keeps an eye on his communi...

Victor's mom isn't around a lot, but she cares about him and just wants him to get better (by which she means stop stuttering). She has her own problems with communicating, though, and struggles wi...