The Fortress of Solitude (novel) - Sequence of Appearances

Sequence of Appearances

• Isabel Vendle - Nicknamed “Vendlemachine” by Rachel Ebdus, Isabel is a moderately affluent woman in her seventies. She is crippled, "a knuckle, her body curled around the gristle of old injuries" (pg. 4). She attempts to convert Gowanus into a new, gentrified neighborhood called Boerum Hill.
• Marilla & La-La - Two young black girls Dylan becomes acquainted with who enjoy chanting songs repetitively. When Dylan revisits Dean Street at the end of the novel, Marilla is still there, sitting on the same stoop.
• Henry - The oldest of Dylan’s friends from Brooklyn and, arguably, the toughest. Henry, becomes an assistant D.A.
• Old Ramirez - Puerto Rican owner of the bodega on the corner.
• Lonnie - Henry’s best friend, later becomes a police officer.
• Alberto - Puerto Rican neighborhood kid who cheats at stick ball.
• Croft - Isabel’s nephew who introduces Dylan to the world of comic books and the man who had an affair and eloped with Rachel. As an adult, Dylan visits Croft at the end of the novel and confronts him about Rachel.
• Mrs. Bugge - Large Norwegian woman who runs a bodega that isn’t “the” bodega.
• Erlan Hagopian - American art collector who lives on upper East side.
• The Flying Man - (Aaron X. Doily) Homeless man Dylan witnesses jumping off of a three story building. Dylan and Mingus also take it upon themselves to tag his blanket with “DOSE” as he sleeps in the street. Once Abraham sees the tag, he rushes Doily to the hospital where he bestows the ring upon Dylan.
• Heather Windle - Dylan’s girlfriend during his summer in Vermont when he stays with her family for The Fresh Air Fund. She is the first person he shows his Aeroman costume to, and she does not like it at all.
• Mr. Winegar - Dylan’s teacher who pushes him towards attending Stuyvesant.
• Barrett Rude Sr. - The father of Barrett Rude Jr., an ex-preacher who has constant conflict with his son's drug-addicted, sinful lifestyle. When he finds that Mingus has also been using and dealing drugs, he confronts Barrett Rude Jr. with a gun. Mingus, in an attempt to protect his father, produces another gun and shoots his grandfather.
• Gabriel Stern & Timothy Vandertooth - Dylan’s two friends from Roosevelt Island with an affinity for impressions of late 70's films.
• Pflug - A thirty-year-old artist with a knack for painting dragon posters.
• Linus Millberg - Dylan’s pal who attends punk rock shows at CBGB’s frequently. He also happens to be a math prodigy.
• Liza Gawcet - Freshman punk rock girl Dylan maybe likes. She loses control of her bladder during the drug robbery exposing to Dylan how naive she is in her cultural vocabulary.
• Abigale - Dylan’s black girlfriend at Berkeley whom he frequently alienates. During Part Three of the novel, he often calls his apartment with a vague hope of talking to her after a large dispute.
• Jared Orthman - DreamWorks executive to whom Dylan pitches his story of “The Prisonaires.”
• Francessca Cassini - Woman who becomes Abraham's girlfriend at the end of the novel. She is nothing like Rachel; she talks a lot and is very caring.
• Zelmo Swift - Abraham’s business acquaintance who gives Dylan Rachel’s wrap sheet in his limo in Anaheim.
• Matthew Schraftt - Dylan’s roommate at Camden, bonds with Dylan over the common bond of middle to lower class.
• Junie Ateck - A young hippie girl who witnesses Dylan flying through the woods.
• Moira Hogarth - Dylan’s love interest at Camden, who like every woman in his life, leaves abruptly.
• Lucinda Hoekke - Dylan's date when he is mugged on a bus in Berkeley. Later appears as the protagonist in You Don't Love Me Yet.
• Orthan Jamal Jonas Jr. - Nicknamed O.J.J.J., this drug dealer is foiled by Dylan and his newfound powers of invisibility, eventually resulting in a shooting and scandal reported by Vance Christmas.
• Vance Christmas - Journalist for the Oakland Tribune. Dylan confides the actual accounts of the Bosun’s Locker shoot out. He also uses his name to sneak out of prison after giving Robert Woolfolk the ring.