49 pages • 1 hour read
Rick BraggAva's Man
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Charlie Bundrum
Charlie is the narrator’s grandfather and the main character of the story. Charlie isn’t religious for most of the book, but he lives by his own moral code: He thinks stealing is wrong, but he doesn’t see anything wrong with drinking his own homemade whiskey. He is a loving father and is the center of his children’s lives, and he is a good husband who works hard to provide for his family. Although he makes his living by roofing, construction, and digging wells, he also makes money by distilling his own whiskey, a skill he learned from his father.
Charlie can best be described as a dualistic character. On the one hand, he is a family man who loves his children and respects his wife. He never lets his children go hungry, and his wife is more his partner and friend than most women were to their husbands at that time. However, he also loves to drink, and he comes home drunk on many occasions. He always keeps his family and his drinking separate, in that he never drinks while he’s around his family, but his family sees the aftereffects of his drinking when he comes home drunk. Drinking is his passion, something that makes life more enjoyable, but it’s also what ultimately kills him.
Ava Bundrum
Ava is Charlie’s wife and the narrator’s grandmother. Ever since she was a little girl, Ava has been feisty with big emotions. That is, Ava always says what’s on her mind and doesn’t just do what she’s told. In this way, she isn’t a submissive wife and is more like Charlie’s partner. She also works hard physical labor, and her husband values her opinion when making decisions. While Ava was educated as a young girl and could have had a more cushioned lifestyle, she married Charlie and took on a financially and physically difficult life because she loved him. She never complained about her circumstances and always showed immense love for her family.
Margaret Bundrum
Margaret is the narrator’s mother and one of Charlie and Ava’s daughters. While most of Charlie and Ava’s children turned out physically tough, Margaret has gentle sensibilities. She doesn’t like physical fighting and tends to shy away from difficult circumstances. She says that she was Charlie’s favorite daughter, and throughout the book, it’s clear that he had a soft spot for her.
Jessie Clines (Hootie)
Hootie is a strange old man that Charlie befriends while fishing on the river. However, more than just a character, Hootie is symbolic of Charlie’s big heart. After Hootie gets terrorized in the middle of the night by unknown perpetrators, Charlie saves Hootie from future torment by letting him move in with the Bundrums. Even though the Depression raged and food was scarce, Charlie would rather know that Hootie was safe and sacrifice a portion of food than let him live alone and unattended. Hootie became a part of their family, thus showing Charlie’s heroic nature.
Rick Bragg
Bragg is the narrator of the story and Charlie’s grandson. Bragg was compelled to write this book because he never got to know his grandfather, and he never really heard stories about him while growing up. As Bragg grew older, he realized that he never heard stories about Charlie because his family was too hurt by his loss to talk about him. After his family finally began telling stories about Charlie, when Bragg was an adult, Bragg wanted to immortalize the man who would otherwise be forgotten in history.
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