Run

Teddy is the youngest of Bernadette and Bernard Doyle’s sons. They fondly think of him as the sweeter of the two Black baby boys whom they adopted during the late 1980s. When the Doyles adopted him, Bernard named Teddy after Edward “Teddy” Kennedy, a prominent Massachusetts senator, in the hopes that his young son would pursue a career in politics one day; for most of the novel, however, Teddy is uninterested. He is 20 when readers meet him in Chapter 2, and Patchett’s narrator describes the former high school athlete as having once been a “fast, long-legged, and graceful” runner (25). Of the members of the Doyle family, Teddy is the only member not to feel cynicism toward Tennessee and Kenya following the car accident; instead, he is the first who tries to comfort and get to know Kenya.

For much of the novel, Teddy considers becoming a priest. Although Patchett does not explicitly define the origin of this interest, Teddy’s close relationship with his great-Uncle Father John Sullivan (Uncle Sullivan) contributes. Teddy has been devoted to his Uncle since he was in middle school, regularly visiting him at his care home. Teddy also devotes himself to the memory of Bernadette, whom he remembers, though he was very young when she died. Patchett’s narrator describes his love for his mother as “his own perpetual flame which he stoked with every available scrap of information” (74-75). His sense of a “flame” as related to yet separate from the “information” highlights the Differences Between Family Legacies and Family Stories. Relatedly, Teddy is also the only Doyle son who keeps the family’s daily practice of praying to the statue: “He got up, leaving his own bed unmade, and went to the dresser to tap the halo of his mother’s statue three times, saying three fast Hail Marys to himself as he did every morning” (250). His devotion to the statue is separate from its backstory of theft and jealousy.

Teddy is a foil for the rest of the Doyle family. He stands apart due to his sensitive, kindhearted nature. However, while Teddy is kind, he is not always reliable. According to his father and brothers, Teddy’s attention and interests tend to wander, and he is rarely on-time. Tip describes Teddy’s tendency for lateness as “a fact so basic and essential to his nature that Tip could hardly believe he had ever expected it could be otherwise” (17). The novel frequently moves between the perspectives of different characters, creating the effect of ambiguity and roundedness in each character because the different perspectives highlight strengths and weaknesses in different people.

For all his kindness and devotion to Uncle Sullivan, Teddy’s family members indirectly characterize him as immature. Teddy’s studious brother, Tip, describes him as prone to distraction. Doyle describes his youngest son similarly: “Just because Tip was smart didn’t mean Teddy was stupid. He wasn’t stupid, he just wandered” (74). For example, in seventh grade Teddy became so distracted by his interest In stories about Bernadette that Doyle had to cut him off: “It was in fact a misunderstanding between them. Teddy wanted to talk about Bernadette. Doyle wanted to keep Teddy from spending his life in the seventh grade” (75)—this had nearly occurred after fourth grade. In high school, Teddy was an accomplished runner, but was removed from the team for his lack of focus: “Fast as he was, he had no talent for showing up” (25). During most of the novel’s action, Teddy attends college at Northeastern, but regularly skips his classes to spend time at the Regina Cleri care home with Uncle Sullivan.

In the novel’s final chapter, however, Teddy appears a changed young man: Four years after the novel’s main action, he becomes a political advocate for people experiencing homelessness in Albany, New York and is preparing to enter Georgetown for law school in the fall. According to Teddy: “He had turned to politics in hopes of pleasing God. It was a pledge he made in the hours before his mother’s death, his second mother, or his first one, depending on how you counted them” (284). He makes this pledge because he feels responsible for Tennessee and Tip’s accident; and although Tennessee and Uncle Sullivan die, Teddy keeps his pledge to God. This shows his final growth as a character, as he commits to this “penance” in hope of becoming a better man (284).

Tip is 14 months older than his brother, and Bernadette and Bernard adopted him shortly after Teddy. Tip and Teddy’s biological mother, Tennessee Moser, wanted Tip to have the kind of life that the Doyles could provide, so she put him up for adoption after he had lived with her for over a year. Tip is aware of this and carries the information with a hint of bitterness. When he and Teddy learn that Tennessee is their mother, Tip responds: “[T]his is our biological mother, the woman who […] set me out on the curb at fourteen months, and now she’s following us around for whatever reason, jealousy, regret, who knows. What part of that am I supposed to embrace?” (95). His questions about what to “embrace” probe the theme of Differences Between Family Legacies and Family Stories. According to Tennessee, Tip had his name in her custody; but according to his adoptive family, Doyle named Tip after Thomas Philip “Tip” O’Neill, the 47th speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Early in the novel, Tip is a serious and demanding character—demanding of both himself, particularly in academic matters, but also of others. The Doyle family regards Tip as the smarter of Bernard’s two adoptive sons. He is in his senior year at Harvard and is passionate about his research on fish (ichthyology).

In Chapter 2, Tennessee pushes Tip out of the way of an oncoming Chevy Tahoe; as a result, Tip becomes acquainted with Tennessee’s daughter, Kenya Moser. Like his father, Tip develops as a character through getting to know Kenya, showing consideration and kindness toward the young girl that he does not express toward his brothers or father. For example, in Chapter 7 Tip brings Kenya to run at Harvard’s indoor Gordon Track and convinces the security guard to let her use the private facility. He also volunteers to bring Kenya to Walden Pond in the spring, when he learns that her teachers never brought her: “How was it possible that any child could go to school in Boston and not get dragged out to Concord for something?” (234). At Tip’s Harvard lab, the two bond over their shared love of nature and interest in exploration. He is confused, but his attempts to rectify her deprivation of sporting and educational resources highlight the theme of Awareness of Privilege.

Kenya unlocks new levels of conscientiousness in Tip’s character. In fact, the close relationship that they form, combined with the circumstances of Tennessee’s death, inspire him to change careers and pursue a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University:

Everyone knew that Tip had gone to medical school because he felt responsible for their mother’s death, because he saw himself as too self-involved to even lift up his head and look through the snow for the lights of a car, and too scientifically-limited to realize a leaking spleen when it presented itself (288).

His perception of being “self-involved” highlights his character development from Chapter 2 until the end of the novel, in which he cares about Kenya and others around him. In Chapter 11 Patchett’s narrator reveals that Tip feels unfulfilled in medicine and longs for ichthyology. Kenya encourages him to return to his passion: “It was Kenya who was always pressing him back towards the fishes, whose unwavering call he had on this night finally agreed to answer” (287-88). This hints that Tip will return to his study of fish after medical school. The novel leaves his arc unresolved. Patchett hence creates a sense of uncertainty that gives the novel a realistic ending rather than a conspicuously-crafted one.

Kenya is a main character in Run. She the 11-year-old adoptive daughter of Tennessee Moser; she is also an accomplished middle-distance runner. Tennessee adopted Kenya as an infant after her biological mother (a close friend of Tennessee’s) died unexpectedly. The narrator does not indicate whether Kenya is aware of this, leaving a sense of uncertainty in the reader that reflects Kenya and the Doyle brothers’ own uncertainty about their parentage. For much of Kenya’s life, she has lived nearby the Doyle family, but Tennessee never allowed her to speak to any of its members. Nevertheless, once fate throws the Mosers’ and Doyles’ lives together, Kenya becomes a catalyst for positive change for the Doyle family.

Patchett does not use Kenya’s narrative perspective as often as the other main characters’. Therefore, particularly early in the novel, her character develops in dialogue with the members of the Doyle family. Kenya is a very independent child, capable of navigating both the Boston area’s vast public transit systems and looking after herself at home when she does not have Girl Scouts after school. Kenya’s independence is a result of the long hours her mother works as an assisted-living nurse for the elderly. In Chapter 7, this information surprises Doyle, who sheltered his own children, but Kenya takes her circumstances in stride, telling him: “Someday, [Tennessee will] get a job where she’ll only have to work while I’m in school. That’s going to be perfect” (188). In general, Kenya sees most difficulties as temporary, which is a function of both her youthful inexperience and her capacity for hope. This subtle character trait is significant, not only making Kenya resilient but inspiring each of the Doyles in different ways.

Kenya also surprises the Doyles through her empathy. Patchett reveals this information indirectly through other characters’ impressions of Kenya. Following her mother’s accident, for instance, Kenya worries about Tennessee’s safety and the quality of care that she receives at Mount Auburn Hospital. Instead of crying for her mother’s absence or her inability to reassure Kenya, she cries for the suffering that Tennessee endures. Patchett points this out through Tip and Teddy’s points of view, when Kenya suddenly begins crying at the breakfast table: “The boys hadn’t realized that she was crying for what her mother was enduring, or might have endured. They had thought that she was like any other child and so would be crying for herself” (174). Kenya’s character shows depth and complexity that outmatches her age. Though some of her most traits are the result of the difficulties that she and Tennessee faced living in poverty, Kenya’s character is also a legacy of her close, caring relationship with her hardworking single mother.