Who Are The Main Characters In Running In The Family?

2026-03-26 23:23:08
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4 Answers

Gavin
Gavin
Novel Fan Librarian
Mervyn Ondaatje steals the show in 'Running in the Family'—a father so wildly charismatic and self-destructive, he’d feel unreal if he weren’t true. His drunken antics and sudden tenderness make him magnetic. Doris, his wife, is quieter but just as compelling; her love for Mervyn is both baffling and moving. Lalla, the grandmother, is pure joy—imagine a woman who treats life like a grand comedy. The book’s full of these vivid, messy people, and Ondaatje writes them with a poet’s precision and a son’s forgiveness. It’s less about who they 'are' than how they live in his memory—glorious, tragic, and utterly human.
2026-03-28 10:58:20
8
Lila
Lila
Longtime Reader Veterinarian
The heart of 'Running in the Family' isn’t just a list of names—it’s how Ondaatje paints his family as both flawed and fabulous. His dad Mervyn’s the standout; a charming disaster who looms over the book like a ghost. You get scenes of him drunkenly reciting poetry or vanishing for days, and it’s heartbreaking and hilarious at once. His mother Doris is quieter, but her resilience sticks with you. Then there’s the parade of relatives: his grandmother Lalla, who’s pure chaos (in the best way), and uncles like Noel, whose tragicomic misadventures weave into Sri Lanka’s colonial absurdity. The genius is how Ondaatje makes them feel like characters in a novel—you laugh at their madness, then suddenly tear up at their loneliness. It’s a love letter to a family that could never fit neatly into a biography.
2026-03-29 14:07:00
16
Zion
Zion
Sharp Observer Electrician
Ondaatje’s memoir blurs the line between fact and fiction, and the 'main characters' are his family—vibrant, flawed, and unforgettable. His father Mervyn is the chaotic center: a man whose life was a series of spectacular misadventures, from bankruptcies to midnight escapades. Ondaatje writes about him with a mix of exasperation and deep love. His mother Doris is more enigmatic, her quiet strength contrasting Mervyn’s volatility. Then there’s Lalla, his grandmother, who’s like something out of a folktale—eccentric, fearless, and utterly original. The book’s filled with side characters too, like Uncle Phil who died falling out of a tree (a story that’s tragic and absurd in equal measure). What makes it sing is how Ondaatje admits his memories might be half-invented, but that’s the point—family stories are always a bit mythic. Reading it feels like flipping through a photo album where every picture has a wild story behind it.
2026-03-30 22:54:06
5
Lily
Lily
Contributor Photographer
Michael Ondaatje's 'Running in the Family' is this gorgeous, chaotic memoir that reads like a novel, and the 'characters' are his eccentric, larger-than-life family members. The central figure is obviously Ondaatje himself, piecing together fragments of his Sri Lankan ancestry with a poet’s eye. His parents dominate the narrative—his flamboyant, alcoholic father Mervyn, whose antics are legendary (like drunkenly riding a horse into a club), and his mother Doris, who’s both tender and tragically trapped in the storm of their marriage. Then there’s his grandmother Lalla, a force of nature who once hid in a tree to avoid a proposal. The book’s magic lies in how these figures feel alive, not just recounted but resurrected through vivid, often surreal anecdotes. It’s less about plot and more about the textures of memory—how family stories blur into myth, and how love persists even in the wreckage.

What grips me is how Ondaatje doesn’t tidy up their flaws. Mervyn could be monstrous, but there’s this aching tenderness in how his son writes about him. And the minor characters—aunts, uncles, colonial oddballs—add this kaleidoscopic richness. It’s like sitting at a dinner table where everyone’s talking over each other, and you leave dizzy but enchanted.
2026-03-31 11:08:02
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