[4] Alex Preston praised "Towles's near-magical gift for storytelling [and] ability to construct a cast of characters at once flawed, lovable and fascinating.

Sent to Salina, a Kansas youth facility for 18 months for manslaughter, Emmett is released early on compassionate grounds when his father passes away.

Billy collects silver dollar coins in an old blue tobacco tin with the portrait of George Washington on it.

He carries around a book with him, “Abacus Abernathe's Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and Other Intrepid Travellers” that he has read many times.

Duchess escapes from Salina with fellow inmate Woolly by slipping into the trunk of the warden's car, which is transporting Emmett home.

After listening to a talk about finances, Duchess adopts the idea of people being in debt to each other through their misdeeds and that "the only way to get a good night's sleep is to balance the accounts.” He uses this to justify his acts of revenge on those he feels have done wrong.

(Sister Agnes) "He's a loyal friend in his own crazy way...But he is also like one of those guys who are born with no peripheral vision....And that can lead to all kinds of trouble."

Raised in a wealthy and well-connected family on the Upper East Side, New York, Woolly has had to leave boarding school three times — St. Paul's, St. Mark's and St. Georges’.

Woolly is often slow to understand, acts impulsively without logic, has an addiction to drugs, and has simple fascinations, making him vulnerable to exploitation.

"It seems to me that so many of our lives end up being hampered by a virtue...If you take a trait that by all appearances is a merit....and you give it to some poor soul in abundance, it will almost certainly prove an obstacle to their happiness."

A man in his forties who served in World War II in the 92nd Infantry Division under the Fifth Army in the Italian Campaign.

Ulysses takes to riding freight trains across the country, never settling anywhere, and that is how he comes to save Billy from the predatory Pastor John.

Duchess unwittingly hitched a ride home with an off-duty cop, which led to Townhouse getting caught and publicly beaten by Warden Ackerly.

(Mr Ransom) "He liked running people down whether he knew them or not" A warden at Salina who is inclined to beating the young men with his stick.